Mushroom Identifier

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 False Parasol

Green-spored Parasol

Green-spored Parasol

Gilled

A large lawn parasol of warm regions, unique among the big scaly agarics in dropping a green to grey-green spore print and in having mature gills that dull from white to sage green.

Spore print · Green to greyish-green

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

Slender Parasol

Gilled

A tall, elegantly slim parasol whose pale cap carries a distinctly pointed nipple at the centre and only fine, sparse scales. Its stem is slender and faintly fibrillose rather than boldly snakeskin-patterned.

Spore print · White

Flowerpot Parasol

Gilled

A slender, brilliant sulphur-yellow mushroom that appears overnight in the pots of houseplants and in greenhouse beds, with a powdery pleated cap and a fragile ringed stem. It collapses within a day, often before anyone notices it opened.

Spore print · White

False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle

Gilled

A soft orange funnel-capped mushroom with crowded, repeatedly forked, deeply decurrent true gills and a white spore print. Despite the chanterelle-like shape it belongs to the bolete order, not the chanterelles.

Spore print · White to cream

Brown Shaggy Parasol

Gilled

A robust parasol of gardens and compost-enriched ground, with coarse brown cap scales, reddening flesh, a thick double ring and an abruptly rimmed bulb at the stem base.

Spore print · White

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

Shaggy Parasol

Shaggy Parasol

Gilled

A stout, heavily shaggy relative of the Parasol Mushroom with a smooth unbanded stem, a bulbous base and pale flesh that stains saffron then dull reddish brown where it is cut.

Spore print · White

Pixie's Parasol

Gilled

A tiny Southern Hemisphere bonnet with a startling sky-blue to turquoise gelatinous cap, attached to rotting wood by a small basal disc. It is a signature fungus of cool, wet temperate rainforest.

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

Parasol Mushroom

Parasol Mushroom

Gilled

One of the largest European grassland agarics, recognised by its drumstick-shaped young form, shaggy brown cap scales and a snakeskin-patterned stem carrying a thick, movable double ring.

Spore print · White

False Coral

Corals & Clubs

A pale, tough, coral-like fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fan-shaped or rosette-like masses on woodland soil. It looks like a coral fungus but belongs to the jelly fungus lineage.

Spore print · White

False Morel

False Morel

Morels & Allies

A spring ascomycete with a reddish to dark brown head thrown into irregular convoluted lobes like a brain or a crumpled turban, with no ridge-and-pit honeycomb. Cut vertically it is irregularly chambered rather than one clean hollow.

Spore print · Pale cream to yellowish

False Turkey Tail

False Turkey Tail

Crusts

A thin, fan-shaped bracket banded in tan, orange and brown that mimics the true Turkey Tail from above but has a completely smooth, poreless underside.

Spore print · White

Gabled False Morel

Morels & Allies

A spring false morel of eastern hardwood forest whose chestnut-brown cap is folded into two to four broad, flaring lobes with pale wavy margins, sitting on a stout white ribbed stalk.

Spore print · White to pale cream

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

Snow False Morel

Morels & Allies

A squat, heavy false morel with a tan to yellow-brown head of rounded brain-like folds and a short, thick, deeply chambered white stalk. It fruits beside melting snowbanks in western mountain conifer forest.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

False Death Cap

False Death Cap

Gilled

A pale citron-yellow Amanita with flattened buff veil patches, a pendulous ring, an abruptly rimmed turnip-like basal bulb and a distinct raw-potato odour.

Spore print · White

Onion-stalk Parasol

Gilled

A soft white parasol with a mealy, pleated cap and a stem that swells into an onion-shaped bulb before tapering to a point. It fruits in crowded clusters on wood chips, mulch and compost, often dozens at a time.

Spore print · White

False Saffron Milkcap

False Saffron Milkcap

Gilled

An orange spruce-associated milkcap whose carrot-coloured latex turns wine-red within half an hour and whose flesh and cap green strongly with age.

Spore print · Pale cream

False Coral Fungus

Corals & Clubs

A tough, leathery, whitish fungus whose flattened branches fuse sideways into fans and mats, looking like a coral but built like a jelly fungus.

Spore print · White

Bull-nose False Morel

Morels & Allies

A stout spring ascomycete with a bulging tan-brown head thrown into broad rounded lobes and folds, perched on a thick chambered white stalk. Its smoothly convoluted surface, without any true pits and ridges, sets it apart from the true morels.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Big Red False Morel

Morels & Allies

One of the largest false morels, with a dark reddish-brown head packed with deep interconnected wrinkles on a massive white furrowed stalk. It fruits in spring in bottomland hardwood forest of the central and southeastern United States.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

Parasola auricoma

Gilled

A delicate pleated inkcap of mulch and path edges whose young cap carries scattered stiff brown hairs, visible with a hand lens, that give the species its golden-haired name.

Spore print · Black