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 Oak Maze Gill

Oak Mazegill

Polypores

A thick, corky, dull-coloured bracket on oak whose underside is carved into a deep labyrinth of thick-walled winding channels.

Spore print · White

Birch Mazegill

Birch Mazegill

Polypores

A tough zoned bracket that looks like a Trametes from above but carries genuine radiating gill plates on its underside instead of pores.

Spore print · White

Conifer Mazegill

Conifer Mazegill

Polypores

A tough rust-brown bracket with a bright orange growing margin and an underside of thick, radiating, ochre-brown gill-like plates.

Spore print · White

Oakbug Milkcap

Gilled

An abundant oak-associated milkcap with a dull cinnamon-brown, faintly banded cap and a heavy oily odour. Its creamy white latex does not change colour but dries brownish on the gills.

Spore print · Pale cream with pinkish tint

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

Gilled Polypore

Polypores

A tough, zoned, hairy bracket whose underside is made of thick radiating gill-like plates rather than round pores, growing on dead birch and other hardwoods throughout the year.

Spore print · White

Bare-toothed Brittlegill

Bare-toothed Brittlegill

Gilled

A firm, muted pinkish-brown brittlegill whose cap skin shrinks back from the rim to expose a fine pale line of gill ends. It partners with oak and beech on well-drained soils.

Spore print · White to very pale cream

Spindleshank

Gilled

Tough, clustered mushrooms at the foot of oaks, with rust-spotted gills and a distinctive grooved, spindle-shaped stem that tapers into a twisted root.

Spore print · White

American Caesar's Mushroom

American Caesar's Mushroom

Gilled

A brilliant red-to-orange Amanita of eastern North American oak and pine woods, with yellow gills, a yellow-orange skirt ring and a thick white sac at the base.

Spore print · White

Western Destroying Angel

Western Destroying Angel

Gilled

An all-white springtime Amanita of western oak woodland, with free white gills, a thin skirt-like ring and a sac-like membranous volva at the buried stem base.

Spore print · White

Rosy Bonnet

Gilled

A stout, evenly rose-pink bonnet of beech and oak litter, larger and firmer than most of its genus, with widely spaced pale gills and a pronounced radish smell.

Spore print · White

Cinnabar Chanterelle

Gilled

A diminutive chanterelle in vivid cinnabar red to pinkish-orange, with blunt forking ridges instead of true gills. It appears in scattered troops on the soil of eastern North American oak woods.

Spore print · Pinkish-cream to pale pink

Western Jack-O'-Lantern

Gilled

A clustered orange mushroom flushed with distinctive olive-green tones, with long-decurrent orange gills that glow faintly green in darkness, fruiting from oak stumps and roots on the Pacific coast.

Spore print · Cream to pale yellow

Cortinarius orellanus

Gilled

A medium-sized tawny webcap of oak and beech woodland with a dry, finely scaly convex cap, thick distant cinnamon gills and a tapering yellow-brown stipe without veil belts.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Maitake

Polypores

A large clustered polypore that builds a rosette of grey-brown, fan- to spoon-shaped fronds from a branched white stalk at the foot of old oaks. The undersides are covered in tiny white pores rather than gills.

Spore print · White

Indigo Milkcap

Indigo Milkcap

Gilled

An unmistakable milkcap with a silvery indigo-blue cap and gills that bleed dark blue latex, staining green where handled. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with oaks and pines across eastern North America, Central America and parts of East Asia.

Spore print · Cream to pale yellow

California Golden Chanterelle

Gilled

The largest chanterelle known, producing massive golden-orange fruit bodies under California's coast live oaks. Its sheer bulk, thick white flesh and blunt forking ridges make it unmistakable in its range.

Spore print · Pale yellow to cream

Weeping Widow

Weeping Widow

Gilled

A shaggy tawny-brown grassland mushroom whose blackening gills bead with dark droplets in humid weather. The hairy cap, veil-fringed margin and near-black spore print make it distinctive.

Spore print · Very dark brown to blackish

Horn of Plenty

Other Fungi

A thin-fleshed, hollow, grey-black trumpet that grows in dense troops among leaf litter. Its funnel shape, near-smooth outer surface and lack of any true gills make it distinctive.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Black Trumpet

Black Trumpet

Other Fungi

A thin, hollow, vase-shaped fungus in dark grey to almost black, with a smooth or faintly wrinkled outer fertile surface and no true gills. It grows in dense troops in deep leaf litter, where its colouring makes it remarkably hard to see.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Jelly Baby

Jellies

A small rubbery club fungus with a slimy ochre-yellow head perched on a paler stalk, usually appearing in troops on damp woodland soil. Its gelatinous texture and irregular, inrolled cap margin make it unlike any true gilled mushroom.

Spore print · Whitish (rarely taken)