UK species guide

A small brilliant violet mushroom of leaf litter, edible but slight and known to take up arsenic.

Thin white shelf-like fruit bodies on dead conifer wood. Do not treat a photograph as proof of identity or safety.

A reliable and common bolete: rich bay-brown cap and pores that bruise blue-green at a touch.

A reddish bracket fungus that grows on broadleaf trees. Confirm the host and underside as well as the colour.

A brown-capped bolete associated with birch, often with dark scabers on the stem.

Once eaten widely in Europe, now known to cause a fatal immune reaction that builds up over repeated meals.

A cream coloured mass of wavy lobes at the base of pines, looking like a bath sponge or a cauliflower.

Egg-yolk yellow, trumpet-shaped and smelling faintly of apricots. One of the safest and finest edibles once learned.

A variable-coloured woodland brittlegill; cap colour alone is not a reliable identification feature.

Vivid sulphur-yellow and orange brackets on standing trees, with a texture famously like chicken breast.

Edible in itself, but it causes a violent reaction with alcohol taken up to three days later.

A small whitish puffball with a spiny outer surface, found on woodland floors and grassland.

A shaggy parasol-like mushroom in coniferous woodland. Several similar species require careful separation.

A modest orange-brown mushroom whose poison destroys the kidneys weeks after the meal.

Responsible for the great majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. Learn this one before anything else.

Pure white, elegant and lethal. The one to check for whenever you pick a white mushroom.

A small grassland mushroom that can form rings or arcs. Many unrelated mushrooms also form fairy rings.

A pasture mushroom with a dull buff cap and an unmistakable violet-blue stem.

The classic mushroom of unimproved pasture: white cap, pink gills darkening to brown, and a clean mushroomy smell.

The classic red and white toadstool. Hallucinogenic and poisonous. Admire it, do not eat it.

A small pale funnel-shaped grassland mushroom; an important poisonous lookalike of edible spring species.

A small brown mushroom on dead wood carrying the same toxins as the Death Cap.

An unmistakable white football in a field. Excellent eating while the flesh is pure white throughout.

Buff coloured with soft spines instead of gills. Almost impossible to confuse with anything dangerous.

Dark funnel-shaped fungi of broadleaf woodland, often hard to spot among fallen leaves.

A large relative of the field mushroom, smelling of aniseed and bruising slowly yellow in a harmless way.

Rubbery brown ears growing on elder all year round. The same species sold dried in Chinese cookery.

A yellow-brown bolete associated with larch trees. The cap can be sticky in wet weather.

A pale orange-buff waxcap of old, unimproved grassland.

Shell-shaped tiers on dead broadleaf wood, often after the first cold snap.

A tall, elegant mushroom with a snakeskin stem and a cap that opens like a parasol.

The most sought-after wild mushroom in Britain: nutty, firm and richly scented, with a pale bun-like cap and a fat netted stem.

A pale translucent mushroom often found on dead beech wood.

A glossy reddish-brown bracket fungus; species within this group need specialist identification.

A small red waxcap associated with old grassland.

A shaggy white column that dissolves itself into black ink within a day of opening.

Small pear-shaped puffballs clustered on decaying wood.

Dense sulphur-yellow clusters on stumps all year. Very common, very bitter, and toxic.

An Amanita that can show reddish bruising. Identification requires a complete intact specimen.

A winter mushroom: sticky orange caps in clusters on dead elm and other broadleaf wood, often through frost.

Small, hollow-stemmed and abundant in late autumn moss, often carpeting whole banks.

A late-season woodland mushroom with a striking lilac flush and a perfumed smell.

A pale woodland Agaricus that may smell of aniseed.

A field-mushroom lookalike that turns bright chrome yellow when cut and makes most people ill.