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 Fly Agaric

Fly Agaric

Fly Agaric

Gilled

The archetypal storybook mushroom: a scarlet or orange cap sprinkled with white warts, standing on a white stem with a skirt-like ring and a bulbous base ringed by concentric scaly girdles.

Spore print · White

Verdigris Agaric

Verdigris Agaric

Gilled

A striking woodland roundhead with a slimy verdigris blue-green cap flecked with white veil scales at the margin, a scaly ringed stem and gills that mature to purple-brown.

Spore print · Purple-brown

Peppery Bolete

Peppery Bolete

Boletes

A small, slender bolete with wide coppery-rust pores running slightly down the stipe and a vivid chrome-yellow base, often found close to Fly Agarics on acid heathy ground.

Spore print · Cinnamon to rusty brown

California Agaricus

Gilled

A common lawn and garden Agaricus of the Pacific coast, with a pale silky cap, a flaring patch-bearing ring and pale greyish rather than bright pink young gills.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Salt-loving Agaricus

Gilled

A dense, thick-fleshed white Agaricus of salty ground, with a cap that cracks into coarse patches, reddening flesh, a sheathing ring and a briny odour.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

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

Flat-topped Agaricus

Gilled

A North American woodland Agaricus with a characteristically flat-topped, grey-scaled cap, a bulbous stipe base that flushes chrome-yellow and a sharp inky odour.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Agaricus crocodilinus

Gilled

A very large white meadow Agaricus whose dry cap cracks into flat plates like crocodile skin. It fruits in coastal grassland and pasture, chiefly in western North America.

Spore print · Dark brown

Felt-ringed Agaricus

Gilled

A stout western North American Agaricus recognised by its thick felty ring with cottony patches, pinkish-brown fibrillose cap and yellow-staining bulbous base.

Spore print · Dark chocolate brown

Giant Cypress Agaricus

Gilled

A giant west-coast Agaricus of coastal cypress and pine groves, with a heavy brown-scaled cap that can reach 30 cm and a thick, patchy ring. Fruits in the winter rains.

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

Clouded Funnel

Clouded Funnel

Gilled

A stout, pale grey funnel-capped woodland mushroom that troops in long lines and rings through autumn leaf litter, recognised by its bloomed cloudy cap and crowded creamy gills.

Spore print · Pale cream

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

Plums and Custard

Gilled

A striking conifer stump mushroom with a yellow cap densely covered in wine-purple fibrillose scales above bright egg-yellow gills.

Spore print · White

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

Sulphur Knight

Gilled

A medium-sized woodland knight with an unmistakable sulphur-yellow cap, gills and stipe, and a powerful coal-gas odour. The colour runs right through the flesh, which separates it from most other yellow-tinted Tricholoma species.

Spore print · White

Anemone Stinkhorn

Anemone Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns

A scarlet stinkhorn that hatches from a white egg into a starfish-like ring of forked arms surrounding a disc of dark, fly-attracting slime.

Spore print · Not applicable (olive-brown gleba)

Galerina marginata

Gilled

A small, ringed, tawny-brown wood-rotting agaric with a strongly hygrophanous cap and a rusty spore print, fruiting in troops on decaying logs and mossy stumps.

Spore print · Rust-brown

Spectacular Rustgill

Gilled

A big, showy orange-tawny agaric that fruits in massive clusters at the base of broadleaf stumps, with a fibrillose scaly cap, ringed stipe and rusty orange spore print.

Spore print · Rusty orange-brown

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

Shiitake

Gilled

A tough-fleshed wood-rotting agaric with a dry brown cap that cracks into a pale crazed pattern, white notched gills and a fibrous, off-centre stem with a fleeting ring zone.

Spore print · White

Yellow Fieldcap

Gilled

An extremely fragile, short-lived agaric whose slimy egg-yolk yellow cap expands, fades to grey and collapses within a day, leaving a rusty ochre spore print.

Spore print · Rusty ochre-brown

Tiger Sawgill

Gilled

A tough little funnel-shaped agaric with a cream cap streaked with dark tiger-like scales, deeply decurrent saw-edged gills and a scaly stem, growing on waterlogged willow and poplar.

Spore print · White

Train Wrecker

Gilled

A tough, cream-coloured agaric patterned with flat brown scales, whose deeply decurrent gills have coarsely sawn edges; it is famous for rotting railway sleepers and other conifer timber.

Spore print · White