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 “Liberty Cap”
Cleft-foot Amanita
Gilled
An eastern North American amanita recognised by its dark brown, patch-flecked cap and by the abrupt basal bulb that splits into vertical clefts. Cut or bruised tissue slowly darkens to reddish brown.
Spore print · White
Deadly Dapperling
Gilled
A small, squat dapperling with a pale cap broken into concentric bands of pinkish- to purplish-brown scales and a stem girdled below the ring with matching fibrous bands. It favours grassy urban ground and hedgerows.
Spore print · White
Inky Mushroom
Gilled
A grey-scaled woodland Agaricus with a dark-centred cap, a chrome-yellow staining stipe base and a distinctly inky odour.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Variable Webcap
Gilled
A heavy-bodied webcap with a slightly greasy grey-brown cap, violet-tinted young gills and a swollen club-shaped stem base. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with spruce and pine in northern and montane woodland.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Hooded False Morel
Morels & Allies
An autumn false morel whose tan to dark reddish-brown cap is folded into a two- or three-lobed saddle or mitre rather than a brain. It grows on well-rotted conifer wood and woody debris.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Ghost Fungus
Gilled
A large Australian bracket-forming mushroom with a cream cap mottled in grey, blue and purple tones, decurrent white gills and a short eccentric stipe; its gills emit a striking greenish glow at night.
Spore print · White to cream
Cortinarius gentilis
Gilled
A small, slender, tawny-orange webcap of mossy conifer forest, with thick widely spaced ochre gills and yellowish veil bands on a slim stem. Its dry silky cap carries a sharp umbo.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Flowerpot Parasol
Gilled
A slender, brilliant sulphur-yellow mushroom that appears overnight in the pots of houseplants and in greenhouse beds, with a powdery pleated cap and a fragile ringed stem. It collapses within a day, often before anyone notices it opened.
Spore print · White
Grey Milkcap
Gilled
A thin-fleshed lilac-grey milkcap of damp birch woods whose white latex dries grey-green on the gills. The greasy, smooth cap and grey-staining pale gills are its key marks.
Spore print · Pale cream
Grey Knight
Gilled
A soft grey knight of pine woods, with a dry cap densely covered in fine radiating fibrils and scales, white sinuate gills and a brittle white stipe. It is the commonest of a confusing group of grey Tricholoma species.
Spore print · White
Man on Horseback
Gilled
A stout, sulphur-yellow-gilled Tricholoma with a greasy olive-yellow cap that is usually half-buried in sand under pines. Its notched bright yellow gills and ringless pale stem are the key characters.
Spore print · White
Milky Mushroom
Gilled
A stout, entirely milk-white tropical mushroom with a thick fleshy cap, crowded white gills and a solid club-shaped stipe. It fruits from casing soil over composting straw in hot, humid conditions.
Spore print · White
Slender Parasol
Gilled
A tall, elegantly slim parasol whose pale cap carries a distinctly pointed nipple at the centre and only fine, sparse scales. Its stem is slender and faintly fibrillose rather than boldly snakeskin-patterned.
Spore print · White
Rainbow Chanterelle
Gilled
A conifer-associated chanterelle whose young cap carries a distinctive pinkish to salmon bloom over orange, contrasting with vivid egg-yolk false gills. It grows with spruce and pine across northern North America.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Ear-pick Fungus
Toothed
A miniature dark brown toothed fungus with a kidney-shaped hairy cap on a slender side-attached stalk, growing directly from decaying pine cones. Its shape recalls an old-fashioned ear-pick.
Spore print · White
Contrary Webcap
Gilled
A stout conifer webcap whose warm orange-tawny cap contrasts sharply with brilliant violet-blue young gills and a thick white club-shaped stem. Rusty brown spores overtake the blue with age.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Blue Spot Knight
Gilled
A silky, pure white woodland knight whose cap and stipe base develop distinctive blue-green or pinkish spots and streaks with age. The white sinuate gills and complete absence of a volva place it firmly in Tricholoma.
Spore print · White
Porcini
Boletes
The archetypal stout bolete, with a smooth brown bun-shaped cap, white pores ageing yellow-olive, and a swollen pale stipe netted with fine white reticulation. Flesh stays white and unchanging when cut.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Turf Mottlegill
Gilled
A small greyish mottlegill of dunged pasture and manured turf, with a hemispherical hygrophanous cap, mottled blackening gills and a slender fragile stipe.
Spore print · Black
Shield Pinkgill
Gilled
A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.
Spore print · Pink
Petticoat Mottlegill
Gilled
A tall, slim dung mushroom with a grey bell-shaped cap edged in white veil fragments and strongly mottled black gills.
Spore print · Black
Livid Pinkgill
Gilled
The largest European pinkgill, with a stout ivory-grey cap, gills that turn from yellowish to salmon-pink, and a strong farinaceous odour.
Spore print · Pink
Redlead Roundhead
Gilled
An unmistakable scarlet to orange-red mushroom of woodchip mulch, with a sticky cap, whitish fibrillose stem and dark purple-brown gills.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Deadly Galerina
Gilled
A small brown wood-dwelling mushroom with a hygrophanous tawny cap, a membranous ring on a smooth stem, and a rusty-brown spore print.
Spore print · Rusty brown