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 “Cluster Brittlestem”
Clustered Brittlestem
Gilled
A brittlestem that grows in tight bouquets of dozens of slender stems fused at a common base, each carrying a small conical tan cap. The stems are white, hollow and snap cleanly.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown
Common Stump Brittlestem
Gilled
A densely tufted stump mushroom with a date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre outward, brittle hollow white stems, and dark purple-brown spores.
Spore print · Dark purple-brown
Conical Brittlestem
Gilled
A strikingly tall, thin-stemmed mushroom with a narrow conical cap that dries from dark date-brown to pale tan, its surface set with fine erect bristles visible under a lens.
Spore print · Blackish brown
Pale Brittlestem
Gilled
A fragile, pale-capped clustering mushroom with a toothed veil fringe on the cap edge, gills that shift from white through grey to purple-brown, and a brittle hollow white stem.
Spore print · Purple-brown
Spring Brittlestem
Gilled
An early-season brittlestem with a smooth date-brown cap that dries to greyish buff and a slender, fragile white stem. It appears in groups on rich soil under broadleaved trees.
Spore print · Dark brown
Red Edge Brittlestem
Gilled
A delicate brittlestem with a small bell-shaped cap on a long, thread-like white stem, and gills whose edges are flushed pink to reddish. The stem base often tapers into a rooting point.
Spore print · Blackish purple-brown
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
Clustered Bonnet
Gilled
A small bell-capped bonnet that grows in dense tufts on oak and sweet chestnut stumps, recognised by the finely toothed, scalloped cap edge and a slender stem that turns golden then rusty orange-brown below.
Spore print · White
Sulphur Tuft
Gilled
A very common stump fungus forming crowded tufts of small sulphur-yellow caps with rusty centres, sulphur-yellow gills that age greenish then purple-brown, and a purple-brown spore print.
Spore print · Purple-brown
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
Fragrant Chanterelle
Gilled
A vivid orange trumpet-shaped fungus that grows in dense fused clusters from a common base, with a nearly smooth underside and a powerful sweet aroma.
Spore print · Pale yellow to cream
Scaly Inkcap
Gilled
A clustered inkcap whose buff-brown bell-shaped cap is decorated with felty whitish veil patches. It fruits in tufts on hardwood stumps and buried wood.
Spore print · Black
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
Psathyrella aquatica
Gilled
A small brown-capped brittlestem remarkable for producing its fruit bodies fully submerged in flowing cold water, first documented in a spring-fed river in Oregon.
Spore print · Dark brown to blackish brown
Umbrella Polypore
Polypores
A large branched cluster bearing dozens of small circular grey-brown caps, each with its own central stalk, growing from an underground tuber near hardwood roots.
Spore print · White
Lantern Stinkhorn
Stinkhorns
Recognisable by its distinctly ribbed, angular stalk that ends in a cluster of short arms fused into a lantern-like point, with dark spore slime on the inner arm faces.
Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)
Pepperpot Earthstar
Puffballs
The only earthstar with a spore sac perforated by many mouths and propped on a cluster of little columns, like a pepper pot on legs. A scarce, unmistakable species of dry sandy ground.
Spore print · Brown
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)
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
Yellow-gilled Gymnopilus
Gilled
A colourful rustgill with a purplish-red, fibrillose-scaly cap and brilliant yellow gills that mature to rust, commonly clustered on wood chip beds.
Spore print · Rusty orange-brown
Moose Antlers
Cups & Discs
Clusters of tall, ear- or antler-shaped rubbery blades rising from a hard underground mass in rich eastern North American hardwood forest.
Spore print · Brownish
Parasitic Bolete
Boletes
A small olive-yellow bolete that grows nowhere except attached to the base of a common earthball, usually with several fruitbodies clustered around a single host.
Spore print · Olive-brown
Alder Bolete
Boletes
A soft, pale bolete restricted to damp alder carr, with shallow decurrent yellow pores that instantly bruise blue-black. Fruitbodies are often lopsided and clustered.
Spore print · Olive to yellowish-brown
Jack-o'-Lantern
Gilled
A vivid orange clustering mushroom of hardwood stumps with true, sharp-edged, deeply decurrent gills that can glow faintly green in darkness, and a pale spore print.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellowish white