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 “Red-Capped Butter Bolete”
Beefsteak Fungus
Polypores
A soft, moist, blood-red tongue-shaped bracket on oak, unique among polypores in having individually separate tubes rather than a fused pore layer.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-brown
American Caesar's Mushroom
Gilled
A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.
Spore print · White
Brown Mottlegill
Gilled
One of the commonest small brown mushrooms of mown lawns, with a two-tone drying cap and mottled dark brown gills that give a dark brown rather than black spore print.
Spore print · Dark brown
Eyelash Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature orange-red disc fungus rimmed with stiff black hairs like eyelashes, growing in troops on wet rotting wood and damp ground.
Spore print · Whitish
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
Barometer Earthstar
Puffballs
A tough star-shaped gasteroid fungus whose thick rays open in damp weather and curl shut again as they dry. Despite the name it is not a true earthstar, sitting instead among the bolete relatives.
Spore print · Dark brown
Shaggy Scarlet Cup
Cups & Discs
A miniature scarlet goblet clothed in long white shaggy hairs, borne on a slender stalk from buried hardwood twigs. The combination of red interior and white woolly exterior is unmistakable.
Spore print · White
American Parasol
Gilled
A stout parasol with concentric reddish-brown scales over a white cap and a spindle-shaped stem, whose flesh and surfaces stain wine-red to reddish-brown wherever they are handled. It fruits in clusters on wood chips, sawdust and old stumps rather than in undisturbed forest soil.
Spore print · White
Stalked Lattice Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
A tall stinkhorn with a slender whitish stalk carrying a globose, orange-red latticed head whose mesh spaces are filled with dark olive spore slime.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Starfish Fungus
Stinkhorns
A stinkhorn shaped like a sea anemone: a hollow pale stalk expands into a red disc fringed with forked arms, with dark olive spore slime pooled in the centre.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Lobster Mushroom
Other Fungi
Not a mushroom in its own right but a parasitic ascomycete that encases Russula and Lactarius fruitbodies in a pimpled, brilliant orange-red crust, twisting them into dense, contorted shapes.
Spore print · Not applicable
Rosy Earthstar
Puffballs
One of the larger earthstars, with thick fleshy rays that flush pinkish-red on their inner surface when fresh and a stalkless buff spore sac with a silky, ungrooved mouth.
Spore print · Brown (spore mass)
Pear Fibrecap
Gilled
A pale ochre fibrecap that flushes rusty red where handled and carries a strong sweet scent of ripe pears. A robust species of broadleaf woodland on richer soils.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Peach Leaf Curl
Other Fungi
A spring-active sac fungus that turns unfolding peach and nectarine leaves into thick, crinkled, red or purple puckered blades. A whitish bloom of spore-bearing cells later coats the distorted surface.
Spore print · Not applicable
Wheat Stem Rust
Other Fungi
The classic cereal rust, forming ragged brick-red pustules along wheat stems that turn coal-black late in the season, with orange cluster-cups on barberry in spring.
Spore print · Not applicable (rusty red spore masses)
Blushing Rosette
Polypores
An oddly shaped cream to pinkish-buff polypore forming rosettes or lopsided funnels on the ground above buried roots, staining reddish brown where handled and often weeping red droplets.
Spore print · White
Blushing Milkcap
Gilled
A very large, heavy white milkcap blotched with wine-red or vinaceous patches, distinguished by crowded pink gills and copious white latex. It grows exclusively with poplars and willows, often in dune slacks and damp sandy ground.
Spore print · Pale pinkish-cream
Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic
Puffballs
A small, brilliant red spore ball with star-shaped lips, sheathed in clear jelly and raised on a stalk of tangled gelatinous cords. It grows on bare mossy clay banks in oak-rich hardwood forest.
Spore print · Pale yellowish to whitish
Pink-tipped Coral
Corals & Clubs
A stout, cauliflower-shaped coral fungus with a thick white trunk and crowded branches whose tips are washed pink to wine-red. It grows from soil in broadleaf woodland and is one of the bulkiest of the branched fungi.
Spore print · Pale ochre-yellow
Scaly Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A tall woodland Agaricus clothed in dark reddish-brown fibrous scales, whose white flesh turns vivid blood-red within seconds of being cut. Fruits in conifer and mixed forest litter.
Spore print · Dark brown
Bleeding Conifer Crust
Crusts
A thin greyish crust on conifer wood with a wavy, finely hairy margin that turns out from the substrate, releasing red droplets where fresh tissue is scratched. It is the standard bleeding Stereum of pine and spruce.
Spore print · White
Scarlet Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A vivid scarlet cup 1-5 cm across, lined with intense red on the inside and whitish and felty on the outside, growing on damp mossy hardwood sticks. It is one of the earliest and most colourful fungi of the year.
Spore print · White
Bleeding Broadleaf Crust
Crusts
A thick, pale, mostly flat crust that hugs dead broadleaf branches and releases a bright red juice when scratched while fresh. Its surface is smooth to slightly lumpy, with barely any turned-out edge.
Spore print · White
Hemlock Varnish Shelf
Polypores
A shiny, varnish-coated bracket with a mahogany-red upper surface and creamy white pore layer, fruiting almost exclusively on dead eastern hemlock. Its lacquered finish and conifer substrate make it one of the most recognisable shelf fungi of northern forests.
Spore print · Brown