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 Shingled Hedgehog

Shingled Hedgehog

Toothed

A large brown toothed fungus whose cap is covered with coarse, dark, upturned scales arranged like roof shingles. It grows on the ground under conifers and drops a brown spore print.

Spore print · Brown

Depressed Hedgehog

Toothed

A small toothed fungus with an orange-tan cap dimpled at the centre and an underside of crowded brittle spines. It grows in sphagnum and moss beds under conifers.

Spore print · White

Terracotta Hedgehog

Toothed

A small orange-buff hedgehog fungus whose cap underside carries crowded brittle spines instead of gills. It is slimmer and distinctly warmer in colour than the common Wood Hedgehog.

Spore print · White to pale cream

Hedgehog Mushroom

Hedgehog Mushroom

Toothed

A cream to pale apricot mushroom whose underside is covered in crowded, brittle, easily detached spines instead of gills or pores. It grows in troops and arcs on mossy woodland floors and often has an off-centre stipe.

Spore print · White to cream

Spiny Puffball

Puffballs

A small round puffball densely armed with long dark brown spines that converge in tufts, leaving a net-like pattern where they fall. It is typically found on rich humus beneath beech.

Spore print · Purple-brown spore mass

Hericium abietis

Toothed

The largest of the western toothed corals, forming cream-white branched masses on dead conifer wood. It is the conifer counterpart of the hardwood-loving Hericium species and can reach the size of a football or larger.

Spore print · White

Lion's Mane

Lion's Mane

Toothed

An unmistakable white cushion of long, downward-hanging spines that grows from wounds on standing hardwoods, looking like a frozen waterfall or a shaggy mane.

Spore print · White

Jelly Tooth

Jellies

A translucent grey to whitish gelatinous tongue whose underside is covered in soft, blunt spines, the only jelly fungus with a truly toothed fertile surface.

Spore print · White

Shield Pinkgill

Gilled

A spring-fruiting pinkgill of hedgerows and orchards, with a grey-brown shield-shaped cap and a strict association with rose-family shrubs and trees.

Spore print · Pink

Deadly Dapperling

Deadly Dapperling

Gilled

A small, squat dapperling with a pale cap broken into concentric bands of pinkish- to purplish-brown scales and a stem girdled below the ring with matching fibrous bands. It favours grassy urban ground and hedgerows.

Spore print · White

Giant Puffball

Giant Puffball

Puffballs

An unmistakable white sphere that can reach the size of a football or larger, appearing in grassland and hedgerows. It has no stipe, no gills and no cap, and its interior ripens from firm white to a powdery olive-brown spore mass.

Spore print · Olive-brown (spore mass)