A Field Guide to Mushrooms of the Carolinas

MUSHROOM IDENTIFICATION

The first thing to know about identifying mushrooms is that many of the diagnostic features will probably be unfamiliar. Mushrooms don’t have beaks, petals, fins, or fur. The telltale features distinguishing one species from another often reside in places you aren’t used to looking. The underside of a cap may be festooned with the expected gills, but in some cases, you’ll see a surface resembling sponge rubber or a field of icicles instead. You’ll need to train yourself to notice details that may at first seem odd or overly picky.

PARTS OF A MUSHROOM

The mushroom of most people’s imagination probably resembles Figure 1, a fruitbody with a cap and stalk, decorated with a color and some combination of smaller features. While this general idea does apply to many types of fungi, others abandoned it for something else or never adopted it in the first place. Their fruitbodies can appear as blobs, cups, balls, crusts, or branching corals, to name a few variations. Not to be outdone, species of cap-and-stalk fungi often get creative with the basic model, distorting it in various ways. Stalks might be laterally placed on the cap or eliminated. Spore-producing areas may look nothing like gills. These are meaningful variations. Let’s examine them, beginning with the site on the fruitbody where spores are produced.

FERTILE SURFACES

Spore production occurs in sheets of microscopic factory units deployed on a fertile surface. This could be the sides (faces) of gills, the lining of small tubes opening to the outside as pores, the teeth of a tooth fungus, the inner surface of a cup, or none of the above. Fertile surface type helps separate mushrooms into large related groups, but narrowing things down further requires closer inspection.

Figure 1. Parts of a mushroom: (a) cap with warts; (b) fertile surfaces with gills, (c) pores, or teeth; (d) stalk with a ring and rhizomorphs

Gills

Gills are thin sheets of tissue suspended in a spokelike arrangement from the underside of many capped mushrooms. Gills may be jam-packed together (crowded) or widely spaced. Some species increase their fertile surface near the cap margin by having forked gills or adding short gills unconnected to the long ones.

Gills may or may not be anchored to the mushroom stalk, if it has one. The degree of gill attachment is another diagnostic clue.

The fertile surfaces of chanterelles and a few other species have ridges (false gills) that appear to be, but are not, true gills. The ridges are somewhat triangular in cross section, not sheetlike, but they can still be confusingly tall. To differentiate the tall ridges of a Cinnabar Chanterelle, for example, from the true gills of an orange waxcap, observe how the gills multiply near the cap margin. Chanterelle ridges repeatedly branch. Waxcap look-alikes maximize fertile surface with short gills.

Figure 2. Types of gill attachments: (a) attached, (b) notched, (c) decurrent, (d) strongly decurrent, (e) free

Milk mushrooms have gills that weep liquid (latex) when damaged. The amount and character of this milk are significant. What color is it at first? Does that change with exposure to air? Does it stain the gills or other surfaces? How does the latex taste? Peppery hot? Sweet? Because color changes may take seconds to more than half an hour to develop, cut a few gills when you harvest an unknown milk cap. Determine taste and initial color; watch a minute for early changes; then bag the specimen. If a delayed reaction is going to happen, it will probably be complete when you get home.

Gills yield other useful details. Usually they hang straight, but in a few species they’re crinkled, crisped, like bacon. The gill edges of shiitakes and some other species aren’t smooth; they are sawtoothed (serrated), fringed, or ornamented with tiny bumps or droplets. The edges might characteristically have a different color than the faces; these are marginate gills. Small folds, "crossveins," sometimes run across the underside of the cap, connecting adjacent gills. In some species, the gill faces are spotted or mottled. All of this has diagnostic significance.

Figure 3. False gills (a) and true gills (b)

Pores

Two large groups of mushrooms, the polypores and the boletes, produce spores inside hollow tubes and expel them through openings called pores. The underside of the cap is covered with them. Pore diameter and shape are species specific. Cut the mushroom perpendicular to the pore surface to see the tubes. They’re packed together like soda straws in a box. The inner lining of the tubes is the fertile surface. Tube length can be important.

The pores, tubes, and entire fruitbody of a bolete remain fleshy throughout the mushroom’s brief existence. Boletes typically grow on the ground and have a classic mushroom silhouette. The size, shape, color, and occasionally arrangement of pores are diagnostic features. So are color changes caused by damage to the pores. Lightly brush the back of a fingernail over the pore surface, being careful not to dig into or gouge it. Most "bruising reactions" occur rapidly, but some take quite a while to manifest. Rather than risk having to wait around when you get home, bruise the pores in the field and watch for a quick response before bagging the mushroom. If you get an early bruising reaction, take note. It may be different an hour later.

Polypores usually grow on wood, may lack a stalk, and tend toward woodiness themselves, at least in age. Perennial polypores, the bracket or conk fungi that live for years on the sides of trees, lay down a fresh layer of tubes and pores each season. You’ll need to cut a specimen to observe that. Other species try to confuse things by presenting a pore surface that doesn’t look like one. The Gilled Polypore, Lenzites betulina, has thick, tough gills. The underside of a Maze Polypore resembles something out of Pac-Man. A pore surface might erode into a jagged field of tube remnants best distinguished from the uniform teeth of a tooth fungus with a magnifying glass.

Other Fertile Surfaces

Mushrooms need not have gills or pores. The spore factories of tooth fungi coat the teeth hanging under the cap. Flat coatings of fertile surface also occur. These may or may not be colored the same as other mushroom parts. The pits and ridges of morel caps are covered with fertile surface, as are the branches of coral mushrooms. In cup fungi, the fertile surface is located on top or inside the disc or cup, opposite the arrangements in gilled and pored species. Stinkhorns exude spores in a foul-smelling glop designed to draw flies and stick to their feet.

Truffles, puffballs, and other introverts house their fertile surfaces within. Vertically section a young specimen to inspect the interior layout and coloration. By the time a puffball is mature and puffing spores, these critical details are history.

SPORES

Spores are the single-celled beginnings of the next generation of mycelia. Mushrooms may launch spores into the air, arrange for transport by hungry animals, or in the case of the inkcaps, drip them in a slurry of dissolving, deliquescing, gill and cap tissue.

Microscopic examination of spores yields important information. Mature spores of a particular species are similar in size, shape, surface ornamentation, and internal features; see Microscopic Information, below (p. 15). Without microscopy, a few mushrooms resist identification, even to genus. Oh well.

But you don’t need a microscope to determine spore color. That information is usually available to anyone with a spare sheet of paper or glass. Use it to make a spore print. What, you ask, is the fascination with spore prints? They remind you of a kindergarten craft project. Spore color is a no-brainer, right? White gills, white spore print; brown gills, brown spore print; yes?

No, not for a significant minority of species. Yellow Unicorn Mushrooms have yellow gills and pink spores. The spore print of the edible Blewit, a lavender mushroom with lavender gills, is listed as pink although it’s closer to tan. Inedible or toxic silver-violet corts resemble Blewits right down to the gill color of young specimens, but Cortinarius spores are rusty brown. Purplish-black spores drop from the strangely yellow gills of hypholomas. The pale gills of the edible Parasol Mushrooms produce white spores; those of its poisonous look-alike, Chlorophyllum molybdites, are greenish. Species in the genus Agaricus have chocolate brown spores, but the young mushrooms have pale or pink gills—check out the button mushrooms, Agaricus bisporus, in the produce section at your supermarket.

Spore printing can go awry. Polypores are sometimes passive-aggressive and refuse to cooperate. Ditto for any overly dry specimen. Immature mushrooms often prefer to rot and present you with a wet brown stain. This can also happen with geriatric specimens and apparently prime boletes. A milk cap might bleed latex all over a spore print. Prevent juices from interfering with spore prints by cutting a hole in a 3 × 5 index card large enough to slide the stalk through but small enough to keep the cap from touching the card. Support the card and mushroom on the rim of a water glass with the stalk hanging down inside. Then cover and wait.

Spore printing is important. Learn to do it; then do it. Cut off the cap of a prime specimen. Set it gill- or pore-side down on a sheet of white paper. Take the precaution of placing an absorbent layer between the spore print paper and the surface of your table or countertop. Cover the cap with an overturned cup or bowl and check back after several hours or in the morning.

Figure 4. Making a spore print

To see a white spore print on white paper, hold it at an angle to a bright source of light and look for telltale shadows behind ridges of heaped spores. Some mushroomers who anticipate white spores do their spore printing on half-white/half-black paper. Alternatives include clear glass, Mylar film, aluminum foil, or a mirror.

THE SUPPORT STRUCTURE

In a few types of fungi, a fertile surface is all that appears, presenting as a crust on the mycelium’s food source. But in the vast majority of cases, the fertile surface occurs on, or is supported by, a superstructure: a cap and stalk, bracket, cup, gelatinous glob, or branched clump of tissue. The details of this support structure are crucial for mushroom identification.

Figure 5. Mushroom cap shapes: (a) bell-shaped, (b) conical, (c) convex, (d) cylindrical, (e) flat, (f) depressed, (g) funnel-shaped

General Appearance

Size matters. Oyster Mushrooms of the Pleurotus ostreatus group resemble fleshy, gilled shells projecting from logs or trees. Caps average 5–18 cm across. An inedible genus, Crepidotus, contains several members with a similar shape, color, and texture. But they are smaller, 1.5–5 cm wide—the spore color is also different.

Mushrooms have species-specific shapes. Caps might feature a characteristic central bump called an umbo or a central "umbilicate" dimple. The edge or margin of the cap may be "inrolled" (tucked under), scalloped like the rim of a pie crust, or decorated with hairs, veil fragments, or spokelike radial lines (striations). In side view, cap silhouettes run the gamut from a furled umbrella to one trashed by a gust of wind.

Color

You’d think this is straightforward, but no. The button stage of a brown bolete might be purple. Individuals of the same species often display slight, or not so slight, variations on a color theme as well. Nor are mushroom colors limited to those found in a box of crayons. Mycologists have dealt with these issues in different ways, some of which are incoherent to laypeople. The result is a hash of terms such as fuscous, pinkish-cinnamon, and sunburn (5D5). When a range of colors must be presented, the problem is compounded. To some extent that can’t be helped, but when you are confused by color names, try two things. First, consult the photo of a species representing the color in question. Second, when a choice comes down to a difference of color ranges, is there a unifying constant? Are you being asked, in effect, to choose between colors tinted with yellow/orange vs. red/purple?

Species with naturally damp, translucent caps often fade and opacify at the first hint of drying. This trait is called hygrophanous.

Surface Features

Mushroom caps and/or stalks may be dry, sticky, or slimy. They may be smooth, lined, wrinkled, or cracked; bald or covered with scales, tufts, warts, powder, fuzz, or hairs. A cap or stalk covered with loose flaking scales is said to be scurfy. The caps of some species are zoned, showing concentric rings or bands of color. Most of these surface features are self-evident, at least with a hand lens. If a term confuses you, check the glossary or ask a mushrooming friend for help.

Flesh Characteristics

The fleshy interior of a mushroom’s cap and stalk contains valuable information. Is it solid, hollow, or stuffed with pith of a different texture? What color is it? Does that change when exposed to air? If it does, where does the staining reaction occur? In the cap? At the base of the stalk? All over? The flesh of tooth mushrooms and polypores is often zoned, somewhat resembling grain lines in wood.

Stalk

Mushroom stalks are almost as variable and diagnostic as the caps. A stalk might be smooth, scurfy, hairy, spotted, or covered with a netlike pattern called reticulation. Surface textures range from dry to sticky or slimy. Some stalks maintain a similar diameter top to bottom (equal). Others are club-shaped or taper in one direction or the other. They can be solid, hollow, or stuffed. The color may or may not match the cap.

Some stalks supply developmental details that caps don’t. Mushrooms begin as thickened clumps of mycelium. These organize into mushroom tissues, grow, and then, in gilled species at least, the umbrella of the cap opens. Mushrooms-to-be in the genus Amanita and a few others are initially encased in a membrane, the universal veil. This breaks open as the mushroom hatches. In some species, veil fragments adhere to the cap as a large patch, as small warts, or as powder. In other varieties, the universal veil simply tears, remaining attached to the base of the stalk. The torn bag is known as the volva—note the spelling. Partly because the fate of the universal veil varies from species to species, stalk bases are of great interest. Some Amanita species also possess rooting basal bulbs.

Whether or not a universal veil is present, inspect stalks and cap margins for remnants of a more localized covering, the partial veil. Many species use them to protect immature fertile surfaces. Partial veils are anchored centrally to the stalk and peripherally to the cap margin. The classic mushroom skirt is a membranous partial veil that has separated from the cap margin but not the stalk. The area of stalk attachment and veil fragments found there are also referred to as a ring or annulus. At the supermarket, you’ll be able to observe the membranous veil of button mushrooms, cremini, and portobellos at various stages of development.

A different style of partial veil resembles a radial cobweb. This is termed a cortina, the feature for which the genus Cortinarius is named. When a cortina tears during cap expansion, it may detach from either the cap margin or the stalk, perhaps leaving behind some dangling threads. Those on the stalk might be invisible but for the dusting of spores they tend to acquire.

Partial veils range from relatively tough to flimsy and rapidly disappearing tissue. When the latter is in question, check young specimens or inspect stalks for the presence of a circular zone where the surface texture suddenly changes. Mycologists refer to this as a ring zone.

Odor and Taste

Mushroom field guides list data about smell and taste. With practice, you’ll learn to associate specific aromas with the terms used in descriptions and identification keys. Crush and sniff a bit of cap. Mycologists say that some milk mushrooms have an odor of maple syrup or burnt sugar. People who don’t get that impression may instead detect a mildly acrid smell. What is acrid? Sharp, irritating, disagreeable, like something burning that shouldn’t be. One version of acrid in myco-speak is coal tar; it reeks like a steam locomotive. If you’re too young to remember coal-fired steam trains, imagine the pungent smell of burning rubber or plastic. Farinaceous is an odor variously compared to watermelon rind, cucumber, meal, bread dough, or farina (think Cream of Wheat). Other common terms for mushroom smells include green corn, spermatic, fruity, garlic, and floral.

Use caution when taste testing unknown mushrooms. You don’t want to accidentally nibble and swallow a potentially deadly species. For a taste test, chew a sliver of cap in the front part of your mouth. Latent bitterness may take a minute or two to manifest. Then, regardless of taste, spit the bite out. Rinse your mouth with water and spit again. To taste the milk of milk mushrooms, put a drop on your tongue. If the latex isn’t instantly hotter than Hades, spread it around your mouth, alert for other flavors before spitting and rinsing.

CHEMICAL REACTIONS

The cap or other tissues of a mushroom might reliably change color when exposed to a particular chemical. Three solutions commonly used for color testing are easily obtained. Store them in sturdy, tightly sealed plastic bottles.

To chemically test a mushroom, cut off the piece you’ll use and keep it away from anything you might later taste or cook—don’t accidentally eat your chemistry experiments. Dip a clean cotton swab into the test solution, then gently dab or swipe it on your test piece. Get in the habit of applying chemicals in the same order and location, relative to each other. Observe and write down the results.

Although most chemical reactions consist of a single color change, this isn’t always true, especially when it comes to ammonia, NH4OH. Watch carefully for a fleeting color flash that quickly morphs to a different color. The difference between one bolete species and another may come down to the presence or absence of that flash.

Chemical tests can be fickle, depending on the age of your solutions and the age or condition of your mushroom. For the most reliable results, use fresh chemicals on a fresh, healthy specimen at room temperature. Parasitized, filthy, or waterlogged fungi may respond differently. If a mushroom was refrigerated, warm it to room temperature before testing. Due to the vagaries of chemical testing, our species descriptions only note reactions of major diagnostic importance.

Ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH): ordinary household ammonia, without added scents, soaps, etc. Ammonia is also used as a mounting medium for microscopic work. It is ideal for dried mushrooms that have been rehydrated in a 70–95% solution of ethyl alcohol, such as 151-proof or 190-proof Everclear liquor.

Potassium hydroxide (KOH): 5–14% solution in distilled water. KOH is another mounting medium for microscopy with fresh or dried specimens. Spore colors reported in the microscopic features section of species descriptions are typically based on spores mounted in KOH. This solution is caustic. If you get any on you, wash it off. It slowly corrodes glass too; that’s why it should be kept in a sturdy plastic bottle.

Iron salts (FeSO4): 10% solution, by weight, of crystalline ferrous sulfate in distilled water. Mix only as much as you’ll need for a few weeks. It will oxidize and lose potency in a month or two.

MICROSCOPIC INFORMATION

Most mushrooms can be identified using characteristics visible to the unaided eye. Although we emphasize these features, species descriptions also include microscopic findings useful to people with access to a microscope equipped with an oil immersion lens and micrometer scale. Microscopic features within a species are consistent. You’ll see information on spore size, shape, presence or absence of textural ornamentation, and color. Occasionally we provide details of cellular structure as well. Mushrooms with a very similar appearance often distinguish themselves under high magnification.

The mushrooms included in this book belong to two subdivisions of true fungi. Most of the species we describe produce spores on the exterior of microscopic club-shaped cells called basidia and are classified as Basidiomycetes. The remaining species produce their spores inside microscopic saclike cells called asci and are classified as Ascomycetes.

While it is possible to study spores taken directly from fresh or dried mushrooms, it’s better to examine those produced by a spore print; those will be mature. Since spores are so tiny, they’re measured in thousandths of a millimeter, micrometers, abbreviated as µm. If the spores of species X are listed as 6–10 µm long and 3–4 µm wide, those numbers reflect the size range of a representative sample of mature spores—usually a minimum of twenty.

Spore shape is significant, as is the surface texture. Colorless spores are referred to as hyaline. Spores are said to be amyloid when they appear blue-black in Melzer’s reagent, a federally controlled chemical unavailable to laypeople. Spores that turn reddish-brown in Melzer’s are dextrinoid. If no color change occurs, the spores are inamyloid or not amyloid.

HABITAT AND ECOLOGY

Fungi are as choosy as other creatures about where and how they carry on their lives. A mushroomer who notes the neighborhood where an unknown species occurs has a leg up on identifying it. Suillus spraguei, the Painted Bolete, grows only in association with eastern white pine. Meadow Mushrooms, Agaricus campestris, those tasty wild cousins of supermarket agarics, are produced by mycelia that dine on decomposing grass. A similar-looking agaric found near a rotting hardwood stump in the woods is more likely to be Agaricus silvicola.

The dietary habits of terrestrial fungi can be hard to know with certainty. Many mycorrhizal species are less specialized than Painted Boletes, and the underground connections between tree roots and mycelia are inconspicuous in any case, best left for professionals with DNA sequencers to fuss over. Saprotrophic and parasitic fungi often reveal food sources more readily. Their mushrooms may be glued to it. Buried wood is a frequent source of confusion. Mushrooms that seem to grow in soil may instead be attached to woody roots or dead and buried branches. The Deer Mushroom, Pluteus cervinus, is an edible brown species fruiting on wood, which may be buried; it has free gills, no partial veil, and pink spores. Some Entolomas—inedible or poisonous brown species with nearly free gills, no partial veil, and pink spores—grow in soil, which may be near dead wood. Failure to prove an attachment to buried wood invites misidentification and a remorseful bellyache.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This field guide helps users identify mushrooms by employing a mix of tactics. Nearly 650 species are a lot to look through, so we begin by narrowing things down with an illustrated Color Key followed, in some instances, by a secondary key to subgroups. After that, you’ll browse mugshots of candidate species, searching for a visual match. But this, by itself, is dangerously inadequate. Looks are often deceiving. That’s why written descriptions accompany the photographs. If your mushroom looks right but doesn’t closely match the species description, it’s probably something else. Try again.

IDENTIFICATION KEYS

The identification keys are comprised of sets of paired, either/or questions known as couplets. You’ll be asked to choose between two alternatives. The answer you select will direct you to another couplet or a species name. Couplets share the same number in the key and are individualized by a letter designation. The first couplet of each key is labeled 1a and 1b. If your mushroom fits the statement in 1a, you’ll be directed to a certain place. But if 1b fits instead, you’ll jump ahead to a different place. Imagine it as a board game where you get to skip over couplets instead of spaces. The only couplets you should answer are the first one and those resulting from your responses thereafter.

To identify an unknown mushroom:

1. Compare it with the images and information provided in the Color Key. Determine which of the 20 major groups it belongs to.

2. Turn to the page listed for that group. Double-check yourself by reading the group header. If there is a key to subgroups, answer the first question couplet, select the alternative best fitting your mushroom, then proceed as your answer directs. Attend to qualifiers; usually, sometimes, frequently, typically, when young, at maturity, and so forth are not absolutes. Don’t force your mushroom to fit when neither choice in a couplet seems right. You may have an atypical specimen or a mushroom not discussed in the book, or perhaps you were led astray higher up in the key. If there is no key to subgroups, proceed to step 3.

3. Compare your mushroom with the photos of species in the candidate group. When something looks promising, read and consider all the information provided about that species, including Comments. Your mushroom might be noted in a comment but not fully described and illustrated. If this occurs, you’ll be asked to search for the mentioned species online. As a search term, use the scientific name in quotes—Agaricus bisporus, for example.

4. When you find a species photo and description fitting your mushroom, you have a prospective identification. As best you’re able, double-check it with other field guides, online resources, and veteran mushroomers in your area.

FRUSTRATION

No amount of blood, sweat, tears, digging, or cursing may be enough to secure a solid ID. Perhaps you’ll get as far as genus; sometimes not. Don’t take it personally. The next time you encounter that species, the specimen in hand could be younger or older. Maybe experience will have taught you a little more. It’s a wonder how many mysteries evaporate with repeated exposure.

SPECIES DESCRIPTION FORMAT

Scientific Name: Current genus and species epithet. It might be different than the name given elsewhere. When an older name is in frequent use, the Comments section may note it.

Author Citation: The name(s) of the person(s) credited for naming the mushroom immediately follows the scientific name.

Common Name: Provided when available.

Description: The observable characteristics of fresh specimens.

Spore Print: The color of a spore print.

Occurrence: Where the species is commonly found, its growth habit, and typical fruiting season(s).

Edibility: This may be fallible and/or incomplete. A rating of edible does not necessarily mean edible for you. See Can You Eat It? on p. 6.

Microscopic Features: Spore details and cellular information useful to identifiers with the necessary equipment.

Comments: May include alternate names and information on look-alikes or similar species not covered in the text. Some chemical test results are also provided.

The temptation to cram a mushroom into an ill-fitting species description can be overwhelming. Resist it. Especially when skillets are involved, the sackcloth and ashes of uncertainty can beat the heck out of the consequences of an identification error.

COLOR KEY TO THE MAJOR GROUPS OF FUNGI

GILLED MUSHROOMS

Cap undersurface with gills that radiate from the stalk, or point of attachment on stalkless species, to the margin of the cap. If the gills are particularly thick or stiff and you don’t find your species here, also check the polypores group. If your species is reddish-orange and has blunt gills with crossveins, also check out the chanterelles.

Amanita porphyria

Cap with gray warts; gray partial veil and gray ring; p. 46.

Lepiota felina

Cap with erect, dark brown scales and dark disc; grows in conifer woods; p. 89.

Marasmius nigrodiscus

Cap brownish to creamy white with a persistent brown umbo and vertically lined white stalk; p. 133.

Panellus serotinus

Cap brown but tinged greenish to purplish; stalk short, stubby; in groups on decaying wood during fall or early winter; p. 105.

CHANTERELLES AND SIMILAR FUNGI

Cap undersurface has false gills that may fork or be connected by crossveins. False gills are usually thicker, shorter, and more triangular in cross section than true gills. The undersurface of some species may be smooth or nearly so.

Cantharellus cinnabarinus

Cap cinnabar red to reddish-orange, decurrent gills; p. 190.

Cantharellus phasmatis

Cap yellow, gill ridges white to cream, then yellowing at maturity; p. 192.

Craterellus cinereus

Cap solitary or in clusters; fertile surface decurrent, with veinlike ridges; odorless; p. 193.

Craterellus odoratus

Caps densely clustered, trumpet- to funnel-shaped; p. 194.

BOLETES

Fleshy mushrooms with a cap and stalk that usually grow on the ground, rarely on wood. The cap undersurface consists of a spongy layer of vertically arranged tubes terminating as pores. This tube layer usually separates easily from the cap tissue. Almost all boletes form mycorrhizal relationships with particular species of trees.

Aureoboletus roxanae

Cap 3–9 cm wide; stalk typically has a dull orange zone at the apex; no part stains blue; p. 200.

Leccinellum albellum

Cap white to grayish or brownish, often pitted; stalk has whitish to brownish scabers; p. 205.

POLYPORES

Tough and leathery to woody, often clamshell-shaped with tubes and pores on the underside of the cap; the tube layer does not easily separate from the cap tissue. They usually grow on wood, sometimes on the ground, and may be stalked or stalkless. Polypores grow singly, arranged in shelflike groups, or sometimes in complex overlapping clusters. Polypores with eroded tube layers can be confused for tooth fungi. Lumpish polypores without distinct caps may resemble crust fungi or carbon and cushion fungi. Close inspection with a hand lens may be necessary to visualize the tube-and-pore structure that separates polypores from these other groups. The pore surface of one species, Inonotus obliquus, is hidden under tree bark; it appears as a blackened cinder erupting through the bark of birch trees or, rarely, ironwood, elm, or beech.

Gloeophyllum sepiarium

Cap stalkless; pore surface gill-like to mazelike; grows on conifer wood; p. 251.

Laetiporus cincinnatus

Cap bright orange to pinkish-orange; pore surface white; p. 268.

Trametes hirsuta

Cap stalkless, covered with coarse hairs, white to gray; margin often brownish; pore surface gray in age; pores minute; p. 274.

Trametes versicolor

Cap color highly variable, concentrically zoned; pore surface white to grayish; pores small; p. 274.

CRUST AND PARCHMENT FUNGI AND FIBER FANS

Crust and parchment fungi form tough and thin fruitbodies that are typically hard and crustlike to leathery or papery. They form somewhat flattened sheets that spread across the wood to which they are attached. Fiber fans and one species of parchment grow on the ground in rosettes or flaring trumpet shapes. The fertile surfaces of species in this group can be bumpy or wrinkled but not sandpapery rough, as in flat species of carbon and cushion fungi. They lack tubes and pores.

Chondrostereum purpureum

Fruitbody forming bright pink-violet to brown-violet wrinkled patches on dead hardwood; margin slightly fringed; p. 288.

Phlebia tremellosa

Fruitbody a spreading crust with a hairy whitish, upper surface and a yellowish to pinkish-orange lower surface; on logs; p. 284.

Thelephora terrestris

Circular to fan-shaped rosettes in clusters; margins coarsely torn; lower surface wrinkled and warted; p. 288.

Xylobolus frustulatus

Fruitbody a crustlike layer of numerous many-sided plates resembling broken pieces of dull ceramic tile; p. 289.

TOOTH FUNGI

Fleshy, leathery, or tough species with a fertile surface composed of uniformly shaped teeth or soft spines that hang downward. These teeth usually occur on the underside of a cap, but in the genus Hericium, the entire fruitbody is covered with them. Some species grow on the ground, others appear on wood, and one occurs on fallen pinecones. If the teeth appear irregular in shape or length, also consult the polypores section. If the toothed fungus has a gelatinous consistency, consider Pseudohydnum gelatinosum (p. 314).

Hydnellum ferrugineum

Fruitbody very similar to Hydnellum spongiosipes (p. 296), but its stalk base is smaller, and it grows under conifers.

Sarcodon joeides

Flesh dark violet; odor farinaceous; taste acrid to bitter; stalk base blackish-green; grows with oaks; p. 299.

CLUSTERED CORALS AND CAULIFLOWERS

Clustered corals are fleshy, solid, finger-shaped or repeatedly branched, flexible or brittle fruitbodies that are sometimes crowned with multiple upward-oriented points. They grow on the ground or on wood. Cauliflowers are large, rounded, flexible, cauliflower-shaped or leafy lettucelike stalked fruitbodies that resemble ribbon candy. They grow on the ground at the base of trees. If your unknown grows on wood and resembles a sparse growth of bright yellow grass less than an inch tall, see Calocera cornea (p. 311). If the stems of your fungus don’t branch and you find no match here, check the earth tongues and earth clubs, the carbon and cushion fungi, and the Cordyceps, Tolypocladium, and similar fungi groups.

Ramaria spinulosa

Fruitbody up to 15 cm high and wide; branches creamy white to tan; base massive; on ground in mixed woods; p. 304.

Sparassis americana

Fruitbody a lettucelike cluster of fanlike branches; on the ground with conifers; p. 308.

JELLY FUNGI

Fruitbodies are distinctly gelatinous and can be soft or rubbery. They have highly variable shapes and colors. Some grow on the ground, others on wood. If your specimen doesn’t key out here, consider the clustered corals, the earth clubs and earth tongues, and the cup fungi groups.

Auricularia angiospermarum

Fruitbody stalkless, ear-shaped to irregularly cup-shaped, rubbery-gelatinous; p. 310.

Ductifera pululahuana

Fruitbody a stalkless, whitish, convoluted, brainlike mass on barkless, decaying hardwood; p. 314.

STINKHORNS

Fruitbodies are egg-shaped when young, typically becoming pear-shaped, erect and phallic, squidlike, or ornately latticed as they mature. Mature specimens are partially coated with a foul-smelling, slimy spore mass that attracts a variety of flies and other organisms. Stinkhorns grow on the ground, in mulch, on wood chips, or on decaying wood.

Clathrus columnatus

Fruitbody consisting of orange to red columns fused at the tips, and a volva; spore mass fetid; p. 318.

Phallus ravenelii

Fruitbody consisting of a head, stalk, and volva; head has a white apical opening; spore mass fetid; p. 320.

PUFFBALLS, EARTHBALLS, EARTHSTARS, AND SIMILAR FUNGI

Fruitbodies of this group are pear-shaped to irregularly rounded or star-shaped, with a thin or thick rindlike spore case that surrounds a soft, powdery interior when mature. Most species are stalkless or have a rudimentary stalk; a few are distinctly stalked. They usually grow on the ground or sometimes underground or on wood. If you cut the specimen in half vertically and see what appears to be a baby gilled mushroom or stinkhorn inside, you have an egg from one of those groups. If your mushroom grows underground or partially so, consider species in the truffle section. If the interior is hard, it may be a member of the carbon and cushion fungi group.

Geastrum arenarium

Fruitbody a small earthstar about 1 cm wide, with 5–10 rays; pore mouth darker than the spore case; in sand; p. 323.

Lycoperdon americanum

Puffball 2.5–5 cm wide, covered with white spines with fused tips that become brown in age; p. 327.

Lycoperdon subincarnatum

Puffball is 1–3 cm wide, has reddish to purplish-brown spines, and grows on mossy hardwood logs and stumps; p. 328.

Rhizopogon roseolus

Fruitbody 1–2.5 cm wide, smooth, white when very young, soon reddish-brown, staining reddish when bruised; p. 330.

BIRD’S-NEST FUNGI AND THE SPHERE THROWER

Bird’s-nest fungi are very small, cup- to vase-shaped fruitbodies that contain tiny egglike packets of spores called peridioles. Bird’s-nests grow on wood, leaves, or other decaying matter. The sphere thrower has a tiny spore case that splits open at maturity to form a miniature star-shaped structure that surrounds a single peridiole. It grows on wood, dung, and other decaying matter.

Cyathus stercoreus

Cup brownish, exterior shaggy-hairy, interior not vertically lined; peridioles dark gray to black; p. 335.

Cyathus striatus

Cup brownish, exterior hairy, interior vertically lined; peridioles gray; p. 335.

CUP FUNGI

Species in this group have fruitbodies shaped like a cup, a saucer, or an animal ear. They may be stalked or stalkless and have flesh that is typically thin and brittle or, sometimes, rubbery. They lack gills, tubes, pores, or teeth and grow on the ground, on dung, or on decaying wood.

Caloscypha fulgens

Cup 1–5 cm wide, irregularly cup-shaped, often split on one side, margin stained dark bluish-green; p. 338.

Jafnea semitosta

Cup 2–5 cm wide, 2–7 cm high, interior whitish to creamy yellow, exterior