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 “Artist's Conk, Artist's Bracket”
Artist's Conk
Polypores
A large perennial shelf fungus with a hard, lumpy grey-brown crust and a chalk-white pore surface that instantly bruises dark brown where scratched, the feature behind its name.
Spore print · Brown
Tinder Conk
Polypores
An unmistakable hoof-shaped perennial bracket with a hard grey banded crust and a soft brown fibrous interior. It is one of the classic decay fungi of birch and beech across the northern hemisphere.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Rosy Conk
Polypores
A small, tough perennial bracket whose dull grey-brown top gives no hint of the striking rose-pink pore surface beneath. Pink flesh running right through the context confirms it.
Spore print · White
Pine Conk
Polypores
A woody, perennial bracket that forms hard hoof-shaped conks on the trunks of standing conifers, recognised by its cracked brown upper crust and irregular, maze-like yellow-brown pores.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
Red-belted Conk
Polypores
A tough perennial bracket recognised by a shiny resinous crust banded in red-orange with a cream to white growing edge, and a hard white context. It is among the most abundant decay fungi of conifer logs in northern forests.
Spore print · White
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
Hairy Bracket
Polypores
A tough, greyish-white bracket clothed in coarse, upright bristly hairs and faintly zoned, with a fine white pore surface beneath.
Spore print · White
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
Smoky Bracket
Polypores
A thin, flexible shelf fungus recognised by the sharp contrast between its pale buff cap, white flesh and strikingly smoke-grey to blackish pore surface that darkens further where handled.
Spore print · White
Purplepore Bracket
Polypores
A small, thin, greyish bracket that covers conifer deadwood in dense rows and shows a lilac to violet pore surface when fresh.
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
Cinnamon Bracket
Polypores
A soft, evenly cinnamon-coloured bracket whose cap, flesh and pores are all the same warm ochre-brown, and which turns brilliant violet where a drop of alkali touches it.
Spore print · White
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
Shaggy Bracket
Polypores
A large, thick, coarsely shaggy bracket that starts bright rusty orange and ages through dark brown to black, growing high on the trunks of living broadleaved trees.
Spore print · Yellowish brown
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
Agarikon
Polypores
A large, chalky white, hoof-shaped to column-like perennial bracket found high on old-growth conifers. Its soft, crumbly white interior and cracked outer surface set it apart from every other large conk.
Spore print · White
Reishi
Polypores
A hard, kidney-shaped bracket with a strikingly glossy, varnished-looking reddish-mahogany surface, a pale cream pore underside and often a lateral or eccentric stalk.
Spore print · Brown
Weeping Polypore
Polypores
A massive lumpy bracket at the foot of oak trees, unmistakable when young for the beads of amber liquid that stand all over its buff upper surface.
Spore print · Whitish to pale yellow
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
Birch Polypore
Polypores
A smooth, pale, rubbery bracket that grows almost exclusively on birch, recognised by its rounded kidney shape, thick inrolled margin and fine white pore surface.
Spore print · White
Hoof Fungus
Polypores
A hard, grey, hoof-shaped perennial bracket banded with concentric ridges, growing high on birch and beech trunks and adding a new pore layer each year.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
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)
Blue Cheese Polypore
Polypores
A small, soft, hairy white bracket that develops distinct blue-grey tints, especially on the pore surface and where bruised, growing in tiers on dead conifer wood.
Spore print · Pale bluish white
Mustard Yellow Polypore
Polypores
A thin tiered bracket of dead hardwood whose bright mustard-yellow velvety top contrasts sharply with a dark purplish to grey-brown pore surface of very fine pores.
Spore print · White