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 “Deer Mushroom”
Mousepee Pinkgill
Gilled
A small grassland pinkgill with an olive-brown cap and a startling blue-green stipe that bruises deeper green, plus a pungent mouse-like smell.
Spore print · Pink
Club Foot
Gilled
A grey-brown woodland funnel identified at a glance by its markedly swollen, club-shaped stipe base and deeply decurrent creamy-yellow gills.
Spore print · White
Frosty Funnel
Gilled
A white woodland funnel whose cap carries a silky, frost-like bloom, growing in troops and arcs through deep autumn leaf litter.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Star-spored Fibrecap
Gilled
A chestnut-brown fibrecap with a sharply umbonate, deeply split cap and a stipe ending in an abruptly rimmed bulb. Named for its remarkable star-shaped spores.
Spore print · Dull brown
Goblet Waxcap
Gilled
A small scarlet waxcap shaped like a tiny chanterelle, with a scurfy funnel-shaped cap, deeply decurrent yellow gills and a long slender red stem.
Spore print · White
Tripe Fungus
Jellies
Tiered brackets with a hairy, concentrically zoned grey-brown upper surface and a deeply wrinkled purplish, gelatinous lower surface that gives the species its name.
Spore print · White
Mica Cap
Gilled
A small tawny-honey inkcap with a deeply grooved cap sparkling with mica-like granules when fresh, fruiting in dense clusters at the base of hardwood stumps.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish
Red Coral
Corals & Clubs
A brilliantly red to scarlet branched coral of Pacific conifer forests, growing from deep needle duff. Some forms carry contrasting yellow branch tips.
Spore print · Pale yellow
Mauve Parachute
Gilled
A jewel-like tropical parachute with a deeply pleated purple-red cap, pale distant gills and a shining black hair of a stem, scattered on fallen twigs and leaves.
Spore print · White
Orange Mock Oyster
Gilled
A stalkless bright orange bracket covered in dense woolly hair, with deep orange gills radiating beneath, fruiting in overlapping tiers on dead logs in late autumn.
Spore print · Pinkish buff
Golden Ear
Jellies
A deep golden-orange jelly fungus forming firm, ear- or petal-shaped lobes on hardwood, always accompanied by the hairy brackets of Stereum hirsutum, the host it parasitises.
Spore print · White
Reindeer Lichen
Other Fungi
A pale ash-grey fruticose lichen forming deep spongy mats of repeatedly forked hollow branches, dominant on tundra, heath and open pine woodland floors.
Spore print · Not applicable
Willow Bracket
Polypores
A rock-hard perennial hoof on willow and other broadleaves, grey to black and deeply cracked above with a rusty brown pore surface and layered annual tubes inside.
Spore print · White
Tree Lungwort
Other Fungi
A large leafy lichen whose deeply ridged and pitted lobes resemble lung tissue, growing on the trunks of veteran broadleaf trees in humid, long-established woodland.
Spore print · Not applicable
Crimson Waxcap
Gilled
The largest of the red waxcaps, with a deep blood-crimson greasy cap, thick waxy yellow-red gills and a fibrous streaky stipe that is distinctly white at the very base.
Spore print · White
Violet-gray Bolete
Boletes
A handsome bolete with a deep violet-purple cap and matching stipe, white pores that age pink, and unchanging white flesh. A common oak associate in eastern North America.
Spore print · Pinkish-brown
Chaga
Polypores
A black, deeply cracked sterile mass that erupts from living birch trunks like a lump of charcoal, revealing bright rusty-orange interior tissue when broken.
Spore print · Pale brown (from hidden fertile crust)
Foxy Bolete
Boletes
A firm-fleshed conifer scaber stalk with a deep fox-red cap, blackish scabers on a stout white stem, and flesh that greys strongly with blue-green tints at the base.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Cracked Cap Polypore
Polypores
A hard perennial conk almost restricted to black locust, its blackened upper crust splitting into deep blocky cracks above a rich rusty brown pore surface.
Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish
Helvella leucomelaena
Cups & Discs
A deep, thick-walled cup with a near-black interior and a pale exterior, sitting on a short white ribbed base that is often half-buried in sandy soil. It is a spring associate of pines.
Spore print · White
Frost's Bolete
Boletes
A vivid lacquered blood-red bolete with dark red pores that weep amber droplets when young, and a deeply pitted, coarsely netted red stipe. Bruises blue instantly.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Manzanita Bolete
Boletes
A large western North American scaber stalk with a deep red-brown, often sticky cap, coarse black scabers on a white stem, and flesh that greys and blackens when cut.
Spore print · Ochre-brown
Yellowing Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, fragile brittlegill whose entire fruiting body — cap, gills, stipe and flesh — discolours a deep honey-yellow with age or handling. It is common in damp mossy conifer woodland.
Spore print · Pale cream
Russell's Bolete
Boletes
A tall, elegant bolete of eastern oak woods, instantly known by its extraordinarily long stipe carved with deep, ragged, shaggy ridges and by its cracked olive-brown cap.
Spore print · Olive-brown