Mushroom Identifier

Fungi encyclopedia

A reference for the fungi you actually find

Each entry describes one species the way you meet it in the field — the cap and its surface, what sits underneath, the stipe and its base, the spore print colour, the substrate it fruits from, and the species most often confused with it.

Showing results for Brown Mottlegill or Fragile Inky Cap

Hygrophorus Milkcap

Hygrophorus Milkcap

Gilled

An orange-brown North American milkcap recognised instantly by its very widely spaced, waxy-looking white gills and copious white latex that does not change colour. Its dry, velvety, wrinkled cap adds to the resemblance to a waxcap.

Spore print · White

Agaricus bohusii

Agaricus bohusii

Gilled

An unusual Agaricus that fruits in dense caespitose clusters, its caps streaked with dark brown fibrous scales and its stipes crowded and often bent. Favours nitrogen-rich soil under broadleaf trees.

Spore print · Dark brown

Tawny Grisette

Tawny Grisette

Gilled

A slim, ringless, foxy orange-brown Amanita of acid woodland and heath, with free white gills and a tall white sac at the base stained rusty brown.

Spore print · White

False Saffron Milkcap

False Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

An orange spruce-associated milkcap whose carrot-coloured latex turns wine-red within half an hour and whose flesh and cap green strongly with age.

Spore print · Pale cream

Saffron Milkcap

Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

A pine-associated milkcap with a concentrically zoned carrot-orange funnel cap, decurrent orange gills, carrot-coloured latex and a pitted stem, the whole fungus staining dull green where damaged.

Spore print · Pale ochre to buff

Flame Shield

Flame Shield

Gilled

A rare and vivid shield mushroom with a scarlet to orange cap that fades to yellow, free gills turning pink, and a slender pale stem yellowing at the base. It fruits on rotting hardwood.

Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink

Fool's Webcap

Fool's Webcap

Gilled

A warm foxy-brown webcap of southern broadleaf woodland with thick, widely spaced saffron-rust gills and a plain yellowish stem carrying only faint cobwebby veil fibres.

Spore print · Rusty brown

False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle

Gilled

A soft orange funnel-capped mushroom with crowded, repeatedly forked, deeply decurrent true gills and a white spore print. Despite the chanterelle-like shape it belongs to the bolete order, not the chanterelles.

Spore print · White to cream

Frost's Amanita

Frost's Amanita

Gilled

A small, brightly coloured eastern amanita with an orange cap, a strongly grooved margin, pale yellow warts, and a rounded bulb finished with a distinct collar-like rim.

Spore print · White

Yellow Stainer

Yellow Stainer

Gilled

A white Agaricus that flushes instant bright chrome-yellow when the cap margin is rubbed or the stem base is cut, and carries a distinctive ink-like odour. Young caps often have a flat-topped, squared-off profile.

Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown

Honey Waxcap

Honey Waxcap

Gilled

A medium orange waxcap with a dry matt cap, pale orange decurrent-toothed gills and a distinct honey odour that becomes obvious as the fruit body dries.

Spore print · White

Persistent Waxcap

Persistent Waxcap

Gilled

A bright yellow to apricot-orange waxcap with a sharply pointed cap that keeps its colour instead of blackening with age.

Spore print · White

Midden Inkcap

Midden Inkcap

Gilled

A miniature counterpart of the Shaggy Inkcap that lives on manure heaps, with a white scaly cylindrical cap, a slender ringed stem and the same rapid melt into black ink.

Spore print · Black

Fairy Ring Mushroom

Fairy Ring Mushroom

Gilled

A small, tough-stemmed grassland mushroom with a tan, broadly umbonate cap and widely spaced pale gills, famous for growing in expanding rings and arcs on lawns and pasture.

Spore print · White

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Pacific Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The large golden funnel-capped chanterelle of Pacific Northwest conifer forests, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills running down a tapering stem. Its cap surface is finely fibrillose, often with a pinkish or brownish cast.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Conifer Mazegill

Conifer Mazegill

Polypores

A tough rust-brown bracket with a bright orange growing margin and an underside of thick, radiating, ochre-brown gill-like plates.

Spore print · White

Shaggy Bracket

Shaggy Bracket

Polypores

A large, thick, coarsely shaggy bracket that starts bright rusty orange and ages through dark brown to black, growing high on the trunks of living broadleaved trees.

Spore print · Yellowish brown

False Turkey Tail

False Turkey Tail

Crusts

A thin, fan-shaped bracket banded in tan, orange and brown that mimics the true Turkey Tail from above but has a completely smooth, poreless underside.

Spore print · White

Juniper-Hawthorn Rust

Juniper-Hawthorn Rust

Other Fungi

A two-host rust fungus that forms small brown galls with orange jelly horns on juniper in spring, then orange leaf spots with tubular outgrowths on hawthorn.

Spore print · Not applicable

Copper Brittlegill

Copper Brittlegill

Gilled

A sturdy orange-brown brittlegill of northern pine woods whose white flesh and stipe turn ash-grey and finally blackish as the fruiting body ages.

Spore print · Pale ochre

Slippery Jill

Slippery Jill

Boletes

A glutinous orange-yellow pine bolete with salmon-tinted pores and a thick, baggy, gelatinous ring that stains brown. Everything about it tends to be sticky.

Spore print · Cinnamon-brown

Cloud Ear

Cloud Ear

Jellies

A rubbery, ear- or cup-shaped bracket on dead hardwood, greyish and finely hairy on the upper surface and smooth purplish-brown beneath, shrinking to a hard flake when dry.

Spore print · White

Hollyhock Rust

Hollyhock Rust

Other Fungi

A short-cycle rust of the mallow family that studs hollyhock leaf undersides with orange-brown wart-like pustules, each matched by a yellow spot above.

Spore print · Not applicable (brown spore masses)

Button Mushroom

Button Mushroom

Gilled

A stocky white or tan Agaricus with free gills that run from pale pink through cocoa to blackish brown, a simple membranous ring, and no volva at the stem base.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown