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 Honey Mushroom

Honey Mushroom

Honey Mushroom

Gilled

A clustered honey-coloured woodland fungus with a finely scaly cap, a thick woolly ring and black bootlace-like cords running under the bark of its host. It is one of the most important tree parasites in temperate forests.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Ringless Honey Mushroom

Ringless Honey Mushroom

Gilled

A honey-brown clustered wood fungus that matches the true Honey Mushroom in colour and habit but has no ring at all on its long tapering stem. It swarms in huge tufts around the bases of oaks and other hardwoods.

Spore print · White

Honey Fungus

Honey Fungus

Gilled

A clustered, honey-coloured woodland mushroom with a shaggy ring, white spore print and black bootlace-like rhizomorphs running under bark. It is one of the most significant tree-root parasites in temperate forests.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Honey Waxcap

Honey Waxcap

Gilled

A medium orange waxcap with a dry matt cap, pale orange decurrent-toothed gills and a distinct honey odour that becomes obvious as the fruit body dries.

Spore print · White

Dark Honey Fungus

Gilled

A robust clustered honey fungus of conifer forests with a dark-scaly reddish-brown cap and a thick white ring edged with brown scales, spreading through the soil by black shoestring rhizomorphs.

Spore print · White

Bulbous Honey Fungus

Gilled

A honey fungus of deciduous woodland recognised by its distinctly swollen club-shaped stipe base, fine yellowish cap scales and fragile cobwebby yellow-fringed ring.

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

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

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

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

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

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