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 “Tumor of a plant (Gall)”
Parrot Waxcap
Gilled
A small, wholly glutinous waxcap that emerges bottle-green and then fades through yellow, orange and pink, usually keeping a green flush at the top of the slimy stem.
Spore print · White
Green Elf Cup
Cups & Discs
A minute turquoise cup fungus whose mycelium dyes rotting hardwood a vivid blue-green; the stained wood is far more often seen than the fruiting bodies.
Spore print · White
Crowned Earthstar
Puffballs
A medium-large earthstar with a dark grey, often bloomed spore sac raised on a short stalk above strongly recurved rays, and a silky fibrous mouth with no grooves.
Spore print · Dark brown (spore mass)
Depressed Hedgehog
Toothed
A small toothed fungus with an orange-tan cap dimpled at the centre and an underside of crowded brittle spines. It grows in sphagnum and moss beds under conifers.
Spore print · White
Common Toadskin Lichen
Other Fungi
A small umbilicate rock lichen whose surface is raised into rounded blisters, giving it the warty look of toad skin, with matching pits on the underside.
Spore print · Not applicable
Clustered Toughshank
Gilled
Crowded tufts of slim pale mushrooms whose long stems, densely coated in fine white hairs, fuse together at a common base buried in the leaf litter.
Spore print · White
Bear Lentinus
Gilled
A stalkless, fan-shaped bracket with a dark velvety-hairy base and pale, sharply saw-toothed gills radiating from the point of attachment to dead hardwood.
Spore print · White
Golden Waxcap
Gilled
A clean lemon to golden-yellow waxcap with a viscid smooth cap and a slightly greasy yellow stem, one of the commonest and brightest species in autumn turf.
Spore print · White
Coffee Leaf Rust
Other Fungi
A tropical rust that dusts the undersides of coffee leaves with vivid orange-yellow powder beneath pale translucent spots on the upper surface.
Spore print · Not applicable (bright orange spore masses)
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
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
Berkeley's Polypore
Polypores
One of the largest fungi of eastern North American forests, forming a massive rosette of thick cream to tan fans with coarse angular pores at the base of oaks.
Spore print · White
Bloody Milkcap
Gilled
A pine-associated milkcap of southern limestone woodland whose flesh releases dark blood-red latex the instant it is cut, with no orange phase at all.
Spore print · Pale cream to buff
Black-footed Polypore
Polypores
A stalked polypore with a polished chestnut-brown, funnel-shaped cap and minute white pores, recognised instantly by the inky black lower half of its stem.
Spore print · White
White King Bolete
Boletes
A pale, almost white-capped king bolete of the American Southwest, growing with ponderosa pine and oak. Whitish stipe with a fine white net and unchanging white flesh.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Bluing Bolete
Boletes
A pale, shaggy-capped bolete of sandy heathland whose every surface flushes an intense cornflower blue within seconds of being touched or cut.
Spore print · Pale straw yellow
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
Agaricus bohusii
Gilled
An unusual Agaricus that fruits in dense caespitose clusters, its caps streaked with dark brown fibrous scales and its stipes crowded and often bent. Favours nitrogen-rich soil under broadleaf trees.
Spore print · Dark brown
Heterobasidion annosum
Polypores
A perennial, irregularly shelving polypore found at the root collar and stump surfaces of conifers, recognised by its rough red-brown to blackish upper crust, sharp white growing margin and cream pore surface.
Spore print · White
Funeral Bell
Gilled
A small, strongly hygrophanous honey-brown mushroom of rotting wood, identified by rusty brown spores, a thin membranous ring dusted rust by falling spores, and clustered growth on logs.
Spore print · Rusty brown
Southern Bracket
Polypores
A heavy, perennial bracket with a thick, hard, dull brown crust and a white pore surface that bruises brown at a touch. Clouds of cocoa-brown spores often dust the bracket and everything below it in late summer.
Spore print · Cocoa brown
Myrtle Rust
Other Fungi
A rust of the myrtle family that coats expanding shoots, buds and young leaves in startling egg-yolk yellow spore powder, later leaving grey-brown scarred and distorted tissue.
Spore print · Not applicable (bright yellow spore masses)
Vinegar Cup
Cups & Discs
A deep brown goblet-shaped cup whose pale, branching ribs run up from a stout base far onto the outside of the bowl. It fruits in spring on lime-rich soil at woodland edges and along paths.
Spore print · White
Velvet Rollrim
Gilled
A robust brown mushroom of conifer stumps with a suede-textured inrolled cap, decurrent forking gills that peel away from the flesh, and a thick stem clad in dark brown-black velvet.
Spore print · Yellowish-brown