Species
Written the way you examine a mushroom, not the way a database stores one.
Cap, then underside, then stem, then flesh, then spore print, then where it was growing. That order is not decorative: it is the order in which the decisive features appear, and the deadliest genus in the world is separated from its look-alikes by a character at the very bottom of the list.
Gilled
Blades or ridges under the cap. The largest group, and the one that holds nearly every deadly species.
Deadly
Death cap
Amanita phalloides
White gills, a ring, and a membranous sac at the base. All three together, in a mushroom growing from soil near trees, and you should stop.
Aug to Dec
Deadly
Destroying angel
Amanita bisporigera, A. ocreata, A. virosa
Entirely white, with a ring AND a sac at the base. An all-white gilled mushroom with a bag around its foot is the single most dangerous shape in the woods.
Jun to Nov
Deadly
Deadly galerina
Galerina marginata
A rusty-brown spore print on a small brown mushroom growing from rotten wood. There is no field character that settles this one. Take the print.
Aug to Dec
Deadly
Deadly webcap
Cortinarius rubellus
A rusty-spored, cobwebby-veiled mushroom in conifer woods. The genus Cortinarius is enormous, poorly known and contains species that destroy kidneys, and it is the genus a careful forager simply leaves alone.
Aug to Nov
Deadly
Fool's webcap
Cortinarius orellanus
As with all webcaps: rusty spores and a cobwebby partial veil. Neither tells you which webcap, and that is the problem.
Aug to Nov
Deadly
Deadly dapperling
Lepiota brunneoincarnata
A SMALL scaly parasol. The rule that saves lives here is blunt: leave every small Lepiota alone. The large edible parasols are 10 cm across and upward; the deadly ones are the little ones.
Jul to Nov
Deadly
Brown roll-rim
Paxillus involutus
Inrolled downy margin, decurrent gills that bruise brown, and gills that lift off the cap in a sheet.
Jul to Nov
Toxic
Fly agaric
Amanita muscaria
Red cap with removable white warts, and a bulb with concentric bands rather than a sac.
Aug to Dec
Toxic
Panther cap
Amanita pantherina
Brown cap, white warts, grooved margin, and a collar at the top of the bulb.
Jul to Nov
Toxic
Jack-o'-lantern
Omphalotus illudens, O. olearius
True gills and orange flesh, in a tight cluster on wood. A chanterelle has blunt forking ridges, pale flesh, and grows singly from soil.
Jul to Nov
Toxic
Green-spored parasol
Chlorophyllum molybdites
The spore print. Green means this, and a young specimen with white gills looks exactly like the edible parasols.
Jun to Oct
Toxic
Sulphur tuft
Hypholoma fasciculare
Yellow-green gills. No edible clustered wood mushroom has them.
Jan to Dec
Toxic
Livid pinkgill
Entoloma sinuatum
Pink spore print in a large, handsome, ring-less pale mushroom that smells of flour.
Jul to Oct
Toxic
Ivory funnel
Clitocybe dealbata, C. rivulosa
Small, white, funnel-shaped, decurrent gills, growing in grass. The fairy ring champignon that people pick has widely spaced gills that do NOT run down the stem, and a tough pliable stem.
Jul to Nov
Toxic
Common inkcap
Coprinopsis atramentaria
Deliquescing grey cap in a cluster. Edible on its own, and that is the trap.
Apr to Nov
Edible, with conditions
Shaggy mane, lawyer's wig
Coprinus comatus
A tall shaggy white cylinder in disturbed grass. Once it starts to blacken at the edge, it is a mushroom you look at rather than eat.
May to Nov
Edible, with conditions
Honey mushroom
Armillaria mellea and the Armillaria complex
Dense clusters on hardwood, white spore print, dark hairs at the cap centre.
Aug to Dec
Edible, with conditions
Wood blewit
Lepista nuda
Lilac gills and stem in autumn leaf litter, with a pale pink spore print.
Sep to Dec
Edible
Wine cap, king stropharia
Stropharia rugosoannulata
The thick cogwheel ring on a wine-coloured cap in wood chips.
May to Oct
Edible
Yellowfoot, winter chanterelle
Craterellus tubaeformis
A hollow yellow stem under a small brown funnel with blunt ridges.
Sep to Jan
Edible
Saffron milkcap
Lactarius deliciosus and relatives
Orange milk that turns green. The milk is the test: cut a gill and wait thirty seconds.
Aug to Nov
Edible
Enoki, velvet shank
Flammulina velutipes and F. filiformis
The dark velvety stem base, on a sticky orange cap fruiting in midwinter on wood.
Nov to Mar
Choice
Chanterelle
Cantharellus cibarius, C. californicus and relatives
Blunt forking ridges rather than blades, pale flesh inside, and growing from soil rather than wood.
Jun to Nov
Choice
Black trumpet
Craterellus cornucopioides, C. fallax
A hollow black funnel with no gills, thin as paper. There is almost nothing else like it.
Jul to Oct
Choice
Oyster mushroom
Pleurotus ostreatus and relatives
White decurrent gills on a stemless or side-stemmed fan growing from wood.
Jan to Dec
Choice
Meadow mushroom, field mushroom
Agaricus campestris
Pink gills going brown, and no sac at the base. Lift the whole mushroom to check the base; do not cut it.
Jul to Nov
Choice
Matsutake, pine mushroom
Tricholoma murrillianum, T. magnivelare
The smell, plus a very firm white mushroom with a shaggy ring under conifers.
Sep to Nov
Choice
Shiitake
Lentinula edodes
Not a foraging species outside its native range. This entry exists because it is the easiest species to grow on logs at home.
Cultivated, no season
Choice
King oyster
Pleurotus eryngii
A thick white solid stem with a small cap. In cultivation it is the meatiest mushroom available.
Cultivated, no season
Bolete
A sponge of tiny pores under the cap instead of gills. Very few boletes are dangerous, and none in North America is deadly.
Polypore
Pores on the underside of a bracket, usually growing from wood and often tough or woody.
Not worth eating
Reishi, lingzhi
Ganoderma lucidum, G. tsugae and relatives
A varnished red-brown bracket that looks as though it has been french-polished.
Jun to Oct
Not worth eating
Turkey tail
Trametes versicolor
Fine WHITE PORES on the underside. The many look-alikes have a smooth underside, a maze-like one, or a rusty one.
Jan to Dec
Not worth eating
Chaga
Inonotus obliquus
Black cracked charcoal-like mass on a LIVING BIRCH, rusty orange inside.
Jan to Dec
Edible, with conditions
Chicken of the woods
Laetiporus sulphureus, L. cincinnatus
A bright orange-and-yellow bracket on wood, with pores and no gills, soft enough to dent with a thumbnail.
May to Nov
Choice
Hen of the woods, maitake
Grifola frondosa
A large rosette of grey fronds with white pores at the base of an oak. Remember the tree: it will fruit again.
Sep to Nov
Tooth
Downward-hanging spines instead of gills or pores. A small group with no deadly members.
Coral and club
Branched or upright, with no cap at all. Spores are produced on the outer surface.
Cup and morel
Ascomycetes: spores are fired from sacs rather than dropped from gills, so most of these give no usable spore print.
Deadly
False morel
Gyromitra esculenta
Cut it lengthwise. A true morel is one continuous hollow chamber from cap to stem base. This is stuffed.
Mar to Jun
Edible, with conditions
Morel
Morchella americana, M. esculenta and relatives
Pitted like a honeycomb, and completely hollow when cut lengthwise.
Mar to Jun
Puffball and earthball
A closed ball of spores with no cap, gills or stem until it splits. Must be cut open, every time, without exception.
Toxic
Common earthball
Scleroderma citrinum
Thick warty rind and dark marbled interior. A true puffball is thin-skinned and pure white inside, like a marshmallow.
Jul to Dec
Edible
Giant puffball
Calvatia gigantea
Pure white and completely featureless inside. Nothing else that size does this, and the cut is not optional.
Jul to Oct
Edibility is recorded because leaving it out would be dishonest, not as encouragement. Choice here means a species is widely eaten and well regarded. It does not mean the specimen in your hand is that species, and working THAT out is the entire difficulty.