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 Flowerpot Parasol

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

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

Plantpot Dapperling

Plantpot Dapperling

Gilled

A vivid lemon-yellow little parasol that appears overnight in the compost of houseplants and greenhouse pots. Its powdery cap opens into a deeply pleated disc on a slender yellow stem and collapses within a day.

Spore print · White

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

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

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

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

Pleated Inkcap

Gilled

A tiny, exquisitely pleated grey mushroom that opens like a paper parasol on lawns after rain and collapses by the afternoon. Its gills attach to a collar rather than the stipe.

Spore print · Black

Chestnut Dapperling

Gilled

A small woodland dapperling whose pale cap is broken into fine, dark chestnut-brown granular scales arranged in rough concentric rings, on a slender stem sheathed with the same rusty scaling below a vanishing ring.

Spore print · White

Stinking Dapperling

Stinking Dapperling

Gilled

A small white dapperling whose cap carries a smooth reddish-brown central disc surrounded by rings of small brown scales. It grows in troops on lawns, verges and woodland margins and has a sharp rubbery odour.

Spore print · White

White Dapperling

Gilled

A clean white grassland mushroom with a smooth unscaled cap, free gills that flush pale pink with age, a movable ring and a slightly swollen base without any sac.

Spore print · White to faintly pinkish

Red-tinged Lepiota

Gilled

A slim, neatly built parasol whose reddish cuticle splits outward from a dark reddish-brown centre into fine coppery streaks over a white cap. The stem is smooth, white and hollow with a thin movable ring.

Spore print · White

Fragile Dapperling

Gilled

Perhaps the most insubstantial gilled mushroom in the field guide: a wafer-thin, deeply pleated yellowish-green cap stretched over its gills like a parasol skin, on a stem no thicker than a wire. It collapses to a smear within hours of opening.

Spore print · White

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

Split Porecrust

Polypores

An extremely common white to cream resupinate polypore whose pores split and fray, becoming maze-like and finally tooth-like towards the centre.

Spore print · White