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 “Field Mushroom / Meadow Mushroom”
Meadow Mushroom
Gilled
The classic white grassland Agaricus, with free gills that shift from bright pink to chocolate-brown, a simple fragile ring and a dark brown spore print. It appears in troops and rings on old pasture after rain.
Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown
Field Mushroom
Gilled
The classic white mushroom of old pasture, with a dry silky cap, a thin fragile ring and gills that are a vivid bright pink when young before turning chocolate-brown. It fruits in troops and rings after rain.
Spore print · Dark brown
Brown Field Mushroom
Gilled
A squat, firm coastal Agaricus with a brown-scaled cap and an exceptionally thick, short stipe. It favours sandy grassland and dune systems near the sea.
Spore print · Dark brown
Meadow Puffball
Puffballs
A small flat-topped white puffball of short turf, distinguished by a membranous internal diaphragm that separates the spore mass from the sterile base. Mature bodies open by a wide ragged mouth.
Spore print · Olive-brown spore mass
Meadow Coral
Corals & Clubs
A yellow to apricot grassland coral whose slender branches fork repeatedly into blunt antler tips above a distinctly white, downy base. Common in mossy, unimproved turf.
Spore print · White
Meadow Waxcap
Gilled
A robust apricot-buff waxcap with a dry, matt cap, thick pale decurrent gills running well down the stem, and a stout stipe tapering to the base.
Spore print · White
Macro Mushroom
Gilled
One of the largest white meadow Agaricus species, with a thick cracking cap that can exceed 25 cm and an unusually massive, felty ring. A grassland decomposer of long-established, lightly managed pasture.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Pavement Mushroom
Gilled
An exceptionally tough white Agaricus of hard-packed urban ground, distinguished by its double, sheathing ring and remarkable ability to push up through gravel and paving.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Wood Mushroom
Gilled
A graceful white woodland Agaricus with silky cap, free pink-then-brown gills, a large pendulous ring and a marked aniseed aroma.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Platterful Mushroom
Gilled
A broad grey-brown mushroom streaked with dark radial fibres, with unusually wide, well-spaced white gills and a stem base tied to conspicuous white cord-like rhizomorphs.
Spore print · White
Pinwheel Mushroom
Gilled
A minute white mushroom shaped like a pleated parachute on a wiry black stalk, unique for gills that attach to a free collar around the stipe rather than to the stipe itself.
Spore print · White
Mower's Mushroom
Gilled
A very common small brown lawn mushroom whose hygrophanous cap dries in distinct pale bands, with mottled brown gills and dark purplish-brown spores.
Spore print · Dark purplish brown
Sweetbread Mushroom
Gilled
A white, matt, suede-textured woodland mushroom with decurrent gills that turn pink and a strongly farinaceous odour. The pink spore print and running gills are its defining combination.
Spore print · Pink
Termite Mushroom
Gilled
A giant tropical agaric with a sharply umbonate pale cap and a long tapering root that runs down to the fungus comb of a termite colony.
Spore print · Pinkish cream
Lobster Mushroom
Other Fungi
Not a mushroom in its own right but a parasitic ascomycete that encases Russula and Lactarius fruitbodies in a pimpled, brilliant orange-red crust, twisting them into dense, contorted shapes.
Spore print · Not applicable
Milky Mushroom
Gilled
A stout, entirely milk-white tropical mushroom with a thick fleshy cap, crowded white gills and a solid club-shaped stipe. It fruits from casing soil over composting straw in hot, humid conditions.
Spore print · White
Oyster Mushroom
Gilled
A shelving, shell-shaped mushroom with white decurrent gills running down a short off-centre stem, growing in overlapping tiers on hardwood trunks. Colour varies from slate-grey and brown to almost white.
Spore print · White to lilac-grey
Beech Mushroom
Gilled
A tightly clustered wood mushroom with small tan caps marked by pale mottled spots and firm white stipes fused at a common base, fruiting on beech and other hardwood trunks in autumn.
Spore print · White
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
Deer Mushroom
Gilled
A soft grey-brown wood-dwelling mushroom with free gills that turn pink as they mature, no ring and no volva, and a pink spore print.
Spore print · Pink to salmon-pink
Caesar's Mushroom
Gilled
A striking Mediterranean Amanita with a smooth orange cap, a strongly grooved margin, deep golden-yellow free gills and stem, and a thick white membranous sac at the base.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Haymaker's Mushroom
Gilled
A tiny, extremely common lawn fungus with a hygrophanous date-brown cap that dries pale from the centre, and mottled dark brown gills with pale edges. Its dark brown rather than black spore print separates it from true Panaeolus.
Spore print · Dark brown
Almond Mushroom
Gilled
A warm-climate Agaricus of compost and enriched garden soil, recognised by its brown-fibrillose cap, large pendulous ring and strong almond-like aroma.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown
Inky Mushroom
Gilled
A grey-scaled woodland Agaricus with a dark-centred cap, a chrome-yellow staining stipe base and a distinctly inky odour.
Spore print · Dark chocolate brown