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 “Chicken of the Woods”
Sweetbread Mushroom
Gilled
A white, matt, suede-textured woodland mushroom with decurrent gills that turn pink and a strongly farinaceous odour. The pink spore print and running gills are its defining combination.
Spore print · Pink
Pine Conk
Polypores
A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Western Gall Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of hard pines that swells branches into round woody galls which split each spring and release clouds of bright orange spores.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange spore masses)
Black Trumpet
Other Fungi
A thin, hollow, vase-shaped fungus in dark grey to almost black, with a smooth or faintly wrinkled outer fertile surface and no true gills. It grows in dense troops in deep leaf litter, where its colouring makes it remarkably hard to see.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Hare's Foot Inkcap
Gilled
A short-lived inkcap whose young cylindrical cap is wrapped in dense silvery-white wool like a hare's foot, then expands, splits, and curls back within hours. Common on woodchip and litter.
Spore print · Black
Sandy Stiltball
Puffballs
A striking fungus with a tall, woody, shaggily scaled stalk rising from a buried sac-like volva and topped by a flattened disc of rusty-brown spore powder. It grows on dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Winter Stalkball
Puffballs
A miniature stalked puffball with a pea-sized spore sac raised on a slender woody stalk, opening by a small tubular mouth ringed with darker colour. It grows in mossy sand and old mortared walls, mainly in winter.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Desert Shaggy Mane
Puffballs
A tall desert fungus with a woody stalk carrying an elongate, shaggy white capsule that splits to release blackish-brown powder. It persists for months in dry climates long after fruiting.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Darwin's Fungus
Cups & Discs
A globe-shaped orange ascomycete that erupts in clusters from woody galls on southern beech trees in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, its surface dimpled with honeycomb-like cups.
Spore print · White
Slate Bolete
Boletes
A firm, slate-grey to grey-brown scaber stalk of poplars, with a long rooting stem, dark scabers, and cut flesh that reddens then turns blue-green at the base.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
White Birch Bolete
Boletes
A ghostly pale scaber stalk of wet birch bogs, almost white overall with soft watery flesh and a faint greenish tinge to the cap and stem base.
Spore print · Pale snuff-brown
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
Dung Roundhead
Gilled
A pale straw-yellow, sticky, almost perfectly hemispherical mushroom on a long slender stem, growing on the dung of grazing animals.
Spore print · Purple-black
Western Destroying Angel
Gilled
An all-white springtime Amanita of western oak woodland, with free white gills, a thin skirt-like ring and a sac-like membranous volva at the buried stem base.
Spore print · White
Termite Mushroom
Gilled
A giant tropical agaric with a sharply umbonate pale cap and a long tapering root that runs down to the fungus comb of a termite colony.
Spore print · Pinkish cream
Mycena chlorophos
Gilled
A minute, translucent grey bonnet of humid Asian and Pacific forests, famous for the pale green light its gills and cap emit after dark.
Spore print · White
Surprise Webcap
Gilled
A drab olive-brown webcap of sandy conifer ground that hides vivid blood-red gills beneath an unremarkable cap, hence the name.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Fool's Funnel
Gilled
A small white to buff funnel of lawns and short turf, marked by concentric frost-like zones on the cap and crowded decurrent gills.
Spore print · White
Candleflame Lichen
Other Fungi
A miniature foliose lichen forming bright egg-yellow patches of tiny fringed lobes on the bark of roadside and parkland trees.
Spore print · Not applicable
Spindleshank
Gilled
Tough, clustered mushrooms at the foot of oaks, with rust-spotted gills and a distinctive grooved, spindle-shaped stem that tapers into a twisted root.
Spore print · White
Pink Crown
Cups & Discs
A large hollow ball that develops underground then bursts through the soil and splits into a crown of rays, revealing a lilac to violet inner surface.
Spore print · White
Flame Mycena
Gilled
A brilliant scarlet to flame-orange bonnet of western North American conifer duff, with orange gills edged in red and a tuft of orange fibrils at the stem base.
Spore print · White
Dripping Bonnet
Gilled
A minute pale bonnet whose thin stem is sheathed in a thick, glassy layer of slime far wider than the stalk itself. It fruits on twigs, bramble stems and fallen plant debris.
Spore print · White
Giant Cypress Agaricus
Gilled
A giant west-coast Agaricus of coastal cypress and pine groves, with a heavy brown-scaled cap that can reach 30 cm and a thick, patchy ring. Fruits in the winter rains.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown