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 “Dryad's Saddle / Pheasant's Back”
Dryad's Saddle
Polypores
A large fan-shaped bracket patterned with concentric brown scales like a pheasant's plumage, set on a short off-centre stem with a black base.
Spore print · White
Felt Saddle
Cups & Discs
A grey, shallow cup raised on an unusually long slender stalk, with fine felt covering both the outer surface and the stem. Its unribbed, downy stalk separates it at a glance from the fluted saddles.
Spore print · White
White Saddle
Cups & Discs
An unmistakable pale ascomycete whose crumpled, saddle-shaped cream head sits on a tall stalk deeply carved into ribs and pockets. It favours the disturbed soil of woodland paths and verges under beech and other broadleaf trees.
Spore print · White
Elastic Saddle
Cups & Discs
A slim, graceful saddle fungus with a buff to greyish two-lobed head balanced on a thin, perfectly smooth stalk. The absence of ribs or flutes on the stem is its most useful distinguishing feature.
Spore print · White
Fluted Black Elfin Saddle
Cups & Discs
A striking grey to charcoal ascomycete with a crumpled saddle-shaped head raised on a deeply fluted, chambered stalk. Its dark colour makes it hard to spot against woodland litter despite its size.
Spore print · White
Western Black Elfin Saddle
Cups & Discs
The stout western counterpart of the black elfin saddle, with a large charcoal saddle-shaped head on a thick, deeply chambered pale grey stalk. It fruits in conifer duff along the Pacific coast and inland mountains.
Spore print · White
Hooded False Morel
Morels & Allies
An autumn false morel whose tan to dark reddish-brown cap is folded into a two- or three-lobed saddle or mitre rather than a brain. It grows on well-rotted conifer wood and woody debris.
Spore print · White to pale yellowish
Bare-toothed Brittlegill
Gilled
A firm, muted pinkish-brown brittlegill whose cap skin shrinks back from the rim to expose a fine pale line of gill ends. It partners with oak and beech on well-drained soils.
Spore print · White to very pale cream
Waxy Crust
Crusts
A translucent, waxy-gelatinous layer that develops under the bark of dead oak branches, splitting and rolling the bark back to reveal itself on bare wood.
Spore print · White
Pear Trellis Rust
Other Fungi
A two-host rust that paints pear leaves with vivid orange spots backed by tiny lattice-like tubes, while producing gelatinous orange horns on juniper stems in spring.
Spore print · Not applicable (orange spore masses)
Peeling Oysterling
Gilled
A stalkless buff to tan bracket-like gilled fungus on dead hardwood, unique for its gelatinous cap skin that stretches like rubber when peeled back from the margin.
Spore print · Snuff-brown
Hare's Foot Inkcap
Gilled
A short-lived inkcap whose young cylindrical cap is wrapped in dense silvery-white wool like a hare's foot, then expands, splits, and curls back within hours. Common on woodchip and litter.
Spore print · Black
Frayed Parasol
Gilled
A medium-sized pale parasol of open pasture whose cap cuticle splits and peels back at the edge, leaving a characteristically frayed, ragged margin over white flesh. Its stem is plain whitish with no snakeskin pattern.
Spore print · White
Aleurodiscus oakesii
Crusts
A corticioid fungus that colonises the outer bark of living oaks, producing sunken, smooth grey patches studded with tiny cup- or disc-shaped fruiting bodies. The smooth, slightly depressed patches on an otherwise rough trunk are the easiest field character.
Spore print · White
Chestnut Blight
Other Fungi
A bark-inhabiting sac fungus that forms sunken orange-brown cankers studded with pinhead-sized orange fruiting bodies. Fans of buff mycelium spread beneath the cracked bark of the affected stem.
Spore print · Not applicable
Glue Crust
Crusts
A thin grey-brown crust on hazel, famous for cementing a dead branch to a living one so that it stays suspended in the canopy.
Spore print · White
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
Olive Shaggy Parasol
Gilled
The woodland member of the shaggy parasol group, its cap a muted olive-grey to greyish-brown with felty scales that barely stand out against the background.
Spore print · White
Oakmoss
Other Fungi
A soft, antler-branched lichen with flattened straps that are greenish above and chalky white beneath, forming tufts on oak and other deciduous bark.
Spore print · Not applicable
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
Candleflame Lichen
Other Fungi
A miniature foliose lichen forming bright egg-yellow patches of tiny fringed lobes on the bark of roadside and parkland trees.
Spore print · Not applicable
Pink Earth Lichen
Other Fungi
A pale grey-white soil crust studded with short white stalks bearing rounded, pale pink heads, common on clay banks and roadside cuttings.
Spore print · Not applicable
Common Greenshield Lichen
Other Fungi
A broad, flat, apple-green rosette pressed to tree bark, with smooth rounded lobes at the edge and a wrinkled, powder-flecked centre.
Spore print · Not applicable
Orange Mosscap
Gilled
A minute orange mushroom that dots mossy lawns and banks, with a navel-centred cap, deeply decurrent white gills, and a hair-thin stem.
Spore print · White