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 Yellow Fairy Cups

Lemon Disco

Cups & Discs

Swarms of minute lemon-yellow discs scattered in their hundreds across damp barkless hardwood, one of the brightest sights on the autumn woodland floor.

Spore print · White

Violet Fairy Cup

Cups & Discs

A small violet to purple-lilac cup fungus that colonises burnt ground, old campfire scars and charcoal-rich soil.

Spore print · White

Yellow-juice Cup

Cups & Discs

A dull grey-brown woodland cup whose brittle flesh releases a watery juice that turns bright yellow within moments of being cut.

Spore print · White

Glazed Cup

Cups & Discs

A small deep cup with a glazed white inner surface and a coarse brown bristly exterior, sitting on damp woodland soil and mossy rotting wood.

Spore print · White

Orange Peel Fungus

Orange Peel Fungus

Cups & Discs

Brilliant orange, thin and brittle cups that flatten, split and contort until they look exactly like scattered pieces of orange peel. It fruits in troops on bare compacted soil, track sides and gravelly ground.

Spore print · White

Golden Spindles

Corals & Clubs

Vivid egg-yellow spindles that fuse at the base into tight bundles, each club tapering to a fine point that browns with age. A signature fungus of old, unfertilised turf.

Spore print · White

Common Orange Lichen

Common Orange Lichen

Other Fungi

A flat, leafy orange to yellow lichen forming rosettes on twigs, walls and coastal rock, with rounded lobes and crowded orange disc-shaped fruiting cups.

Spore print · Not applicable

Lemon Peel Fungus

Cups & Discs

An ear-shaped yellow cup split down one side, with an apricot-pink flush on the inner surface, growing in leaf litter under broadleaved trees.

Spore print · White

Dappled Webcap

Gilled

A striking webcap whose pale cream cap is broken into flat coppery-red scales, with white flesh that yellows and then reddens where cut.

Spore print · Rusty brown

Velvet Bolete

Boletes

A stout pine bolete with a dry, velvety orange-ochre cap and small dark cinnamon pores. The pale yellow flesh usually flushes blue where cut.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Yellow-tipped Coral

Corals & Clubs

A large branched coral fungus with salmon to apricot-pink branches tipped in clear yellow, growing from woodland soil. Its flesh typically discolours brownish where bruised or cut.

Spore print · Pale yellow-ochre

Yellow Swamp Brittlegill

Gilled

A striking pure chrome-yellow brittlegill of boggy birch woods, identified by its bright unfaded cap and by flesh that turns grey and eventually black where cut or bruised.

Spore print · Pale ochre

Scarletina Bolete

Scarletina Bolete

Boletes

A stout, dark-capped bolete with blood-red pores and a yellow stipe peppered with fine red dots, whose lemon flesh turns instantly inky blue when cut.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Yellow-staining Mushroom

Yellow-staining Mushroom

Gilled

A white Agaricus of hedges and parks whose flesh flushes instant chrome-yellow when rubbed, most vividly in a cut stem base, and which carries a sharp phenolic odour. The young cap is characteristically squared off.

Spore print · Dark brown

Porcini

Porcini

Boletes

The archetypal stout bolete, with a smooth brown bun-shaped cap, white pores ageing yellow-olive, and a swollen pale stipe netted with fine white reticulation. Flesh stays white and unchanging when cut.

Spore print · Olive-brown

Yellow Stainer

Yellow Stainer

Gilled

A white Agaricus that flushes instant bright chrome-yellow when the cap margin is rubbed or the stem base is cut, and carries a distinctive ink-like odour. Young caps often have a flat-topped, squared-off profile.

Spore print · Dark chocolate-brown

Common Earthball

Common Earthball

Puffballs

A hard, squat, dirty-yellow ball with a thick rind broken into coarse polygonal warts, sitting half-buried on acid woodland soil. Cut vertically it shows a firm marbled purple-black interior even when young.

Spore print · Purple-black to blackish brown (spore mass)