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 Oyster Mushroom

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

Pink Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A tropical and subtropical oyster mushroom forming rosettes of thin salmon-pink to rose fans on dead hardwood, the colour fading to buff as the fruit bodies mature.

Spore print · Pale pink to whitish

Aspen Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A North American oyster mushroom restricted to dead aspen and cottonwood, with pale fleshy caps in overlapping shelves and a buff-tinted rather than lilac spore print.

Spore print · White to pale buff

Golden Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A vivid golden-yellow oyster mushroom that grows in dense bouquets from dead hardwood, its thin funnel-shaped caps fading to pale ochre as they age.

Spore print · White to pale lilac

Elm Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A firm, pale, smooth-capped mushroom that grows from wounds on standing elms and maples, distinguished from true oysters by its stout central-to-eccentric stipe and gills that are notched rather than long-decurrent.

Spore print · White

Phoenix Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The warm-season oyster mushroom, with paler, thinner, more lung-shaped caps than the common oyster and a more clearly developed lateral stem.

Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey

Branched Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

A cream to ochre oyster mushroom with deeply funnel-shaped caps growing in branched bouquets, identified by gills that run down the stem and fuse into a raised network.

Spore print · White to pale lilac

King Oyster Mushroom

Gilled

The heaviest of the oyster mushrooms, with a small greyish-tan cap perched on a thick club-shaped white stem, growing from the dead root crowns of umbellifers in dry grassland.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Pink Oyster

Gilled

A tropical oyster mushroom forming shelved rosettes of bright salmon-pink fan-shaped caps with deeply decurrent gills, fading to buff with age.

Spore print · White to pale pinkish lilac

Veiled Oyster

Gilled

A stout, thick-fleshed white oyster with a felty-scaly cap surface and a partial veil that leaves a fringed cap margin or a fleeting ring on the off-centre stipe. It fruits singly or in small groups from wounds on standing hardwoods.

Spore print · White

Golden Oyster

Golden Oyster

Gilled

A clustered oyster mushroom with bright lemon to golden-yellow caps that flatten into shallow funnels, with white decurrent gills on fused off-centre stalks.

Spore print · White to pale lilac-grey

Oyster Rollrim

Gilled

A stalkless ochre to yellow-brown fan on conifer wood, recognised by its inrolled wavy margin and soft, crowded, strongly forked and cross-veined orange-buff gills that separate easily from the flesh.

Spore print · Pale yellowish brown

Bitter Oyster

Gilled

A small, tough, tan kidney-shaped bracket with a suede-textured cap and a stubby lateral stalk, growing in dense overlapping rows on hardwood; North American populations glow faintly green in the dark.

Spore print · White

Orange Mock Oyster

Gilled

A stalkless bright orange bracket covered in dense woolly hair, with deep orange gills radiating beneath, fruiting in overlapping tiers on dead logs in late autumn.

Spore print · Pinkish buff

Late Fall Oyster

Gilled

A cold-weather bracket with an olive to yellow-green tacky cap, crowded orange-yellow gills and a short stubby lateral stipe, fruiting on hardwood logs after most other mushrooms have finished.

Spore print · White to pale yellowish

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

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

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

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

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