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 “Orange Moss Omphalina (likely)”
False Coral Fungus
Corals & Clubs
A tough, leathery, whitish fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fans and mats, looking like a coral but built like a jelly fungus.
Spore print · White
Black Morel
Morels & Allies
A conical spring morel whose pits are arranged in vertical ladder-like rows between ridges that darken to grey, olive or black. Like all true morels it is hollow throughout with the head fused to the stalk.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
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
Mountain Blond Morel
Morels & Allies
A western mountain morel shaped like a black morel but coloured like a blond one: its ridges stay pale cream and never blacken, contrasting with greyish to tan pits. It fruits in conifer forest as the snow retreats.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Gem-studded Puffball
Puffballs
A small white to buff puffball shaped like an inverted pear, covered in detachable cone-shaped spines that leave a net-like pattern of scars when they fall. It releases spores through a neat apical pore in the top of the head.
Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)
White Coral Jelly
Jellies
A cluster of thin, translucent white gelatinous lobes that fan out from dead branches like a frozen flower or a piece of crumpled tissue. Its near-colourless, seaweed-like fronds set it apart from every other jelly fungus.
Spore print · White
Common Script Lichen
Crusts
A pale grey bark crust inscribed with fine black branching slits that look like handwriting or hieroglyphs across the trunk.
Spore print · Not applicable
Methuselah's Beard Lichen
Other Fungi
The longest lichen in the world, hanging in pale greenish ropes several metres long with short perpendicular side branches like a bottlebrush.
Spore print · Not applicable
Ochre Bracket
Polypores
A close relative of Turkey Tail that is thicker and stiffer, banded in warm ochre, tan and rust tones with a cushion-like swelling at the attachment.
Spore print · White
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
White Brain
Jellies
A translucent white to greyish jelly that spreads along dead hardwood branches as glistening cushions which merge into folded, brain-like ridges.
Spore print · White
Anemone Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A scarlet stinkhorn that hatches from a white egg into a starfish-like ring of forked arms surrounding a disc of dark, fly-attracting slime.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Birch Mazegill
Polypores
A tough zoned bracket that looks like a Trametes from above but carries genuine radiating gill plates on its underside instead of pores.
Spore print · White
Cauliflower Mushroom
Corals & Clubs
A large cream-coloured rosette of flattened, crimped, ribbon-like lobes that grows at the base of conifers, resembling a cauliflower head or a bath sponge.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Blushing Bracket
Polypores
A flat, radially wrinkled bracket in reddish and tan bands whose pale maze-like underside flushes distinctly pink-red wherever it is touched.
Spore print · White
Hebeloma radicosum
Gilled
A large ringed Hebeloma with a deeply rooting stipe that traces down to a buried mammal latrine, and a marzipan-like almond scent.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Map Lichen
Crusts
A vivid yellow-green crustose lichen whose black-rimmed patches meet like countries on a map, painting granite and slate in exposed mountain country.
Spore print · Not applicable
Horsehair Parachute
Gilled
A pinhead-sized brown parachute perched on a stiff black hair, often accompanied by tangles of black horsehair-like cords running through the needle litter.
Spore print · White
Hebeloma crustuliniforme
Gilled
A pale clay-coloured woodland mushroom with crowded brown-maturing gills whose edges bead with droplets in humid weather, and a strong radish-like odour.
Spore print · Snuff-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
Arched Earthstar
Puffballs
A tall earthstar that stands on four arched, leg-like rays with their tips anchored in a cup of mycelium, holding the stalked spore sac well clear of the ground.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Hammered Shield Lichen
Other Fungi
A grey foliose lichen whose lobes are embossed with a network of white ridges and shallow pits, looking like hammered metal, with soredia along the ridge lines.
Spore print · Not applicable
Splendid Waxcap
Gilled
One of the largest scarlet waxcaps, with a deep blood-red cap, yellow-flushed decurrent gills, and a honey-like scent as it dries.
Spore print · White
Lumpy Bracket
Polypores
A thick, chalky-white semicircular bracket with a pronounced lump above the attachment point and distinctive elongated, slot-like pores underneath.
Spore print · White