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Mushroom Identification Pictures and Examples

Modified: Jan 30, 2023 by Mrs. Mushroom · This post may contain affiliate links · 4 Comments

I get a lot of emails from people wanting help with mushroom identification. Unfortunately, identifying mushrooms from just a picture and a brief description can be very difficult.

Since there are so many factors to consider, I built this page to show beginners the thought process associated with identifying different types of mushrooms. There are some crucial factors to observe besides just color and size.

Russula sp
Birch bolete
Mushroom identification takes practice; there is lot more to it than just color and size.

I’d divided this page into two sections. The first outlines things to look for when finding a new mushroom. The other contains five examples of mushroom identification. These lists and examples are by no means exhaustive, but they do give you a good feel for the basic process.

As always, never eat anything based on what you read here or anywhere else on the Internet. Nothing takes the place of hands-on instruction!

Jump to:
  • Eight Great Mushroom Identification Traits
  • Five Different Examples

Eight Great Mushroom Identification Traits

These are in no particular order. Click on the links to learn more.

Gills – What sort of spore-producing structures do you see? How are they attached? Be it gills, pores, or teeth, this is important to know.
brown widely spaced gills
Gills
bolete pores
Pores
hedgehog teeth
Teeth
Stalk description – Make note of the size, shape, color, and whether or not it is hollow.
bolete stem is solid white
Solid white stem
mushroom stem hollow inside
Hollow Stem
Bolete with a colorful stem
Multi-color stem
Spore color – Another extremely important mushroom identification characteristic. You will have to make a spore print to know this.
spore prints
An orange spore print and a black spore print.
Bruising when touched – Does it change color or bleed any liquid when it’s sliced in half or grasped firmly?
bolete stains blue
This bolete bruises blue when sliced
milky cap stains blue green
The saffron milky cap bruises blue/green
Habitat – Anything about the surrounding area. This includes trees, temperature, soil, etc.
lion's mane growing on tree
Lions mane growing on trees.
inky caps growing on the ground
Inky caps growing on ground
Time of year – Certain mushrooms fruit during certain times of the year.
black trumpet patch
Black trumpets appear in late summer or fall
dryad saddle on tree
Dryad’s saddle is a spring mushroom
Cap description – Like the stalk, note all physical characteristics of the cap.
rounded smooth cap of a bolete
A bolete with a smooth, rounded cap like a bread bun
orange decorated cap of an amanita
An amanita with a bright orange decorated cap
Smell and taste – Don’t leave out these sensations. Smell and taste may tell you something too. (If tasting, only try the tiniest amount!)
prince agaricus with a marzipan scent
The prince agaricus smalls like marzipan
chanterelles smell like apricots
Chanterelles smell like apricots

There’s much more to note about a mushroom than just these eight things. Some mushrooms display a chemical reaction when exposed to certain substances. Others are distinguished by microscopic characteristics.

For our purposes of beginner’s mushroom identification, learning to examine these eight is a good start.

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Five Different Examples

Below are five different mushroom examples. Follow along and apply this type of analysis to your own finds! Mushroom identification is easier when you break down the characteristics.

Pick up a highly rated guidebook for your region if you don’t already have one.

I found all of these mushrooms in New Hampshire or Vermont.

Old Man of the Woods
Chanterelle
Northern Tooth
Russula
Honey Fungus

Old Man of the Woods (Strobilomyces floccopus)

No, it’s not that weird guy who lives in the forest behind your local bike path. This is a good beginner mushroom.

old man of the woods mushroom in forest
underside of old man of the woods mushrooms
Old Man of the woods really stands out with it’s unique characteristics
  • Gills: None. A spongy layer of pores was on the underside of the cap instead.
  • Cap/stem: Distinct from each other, with white and gray coloring. The cap is convex, with a layer of woolly scales on the top.
  • Spore color: Unknown
  • Bruising: Reddish at first, then slowly turning to black.
  • Habitat: I picked this just off a trail in a mixed hardwood forest. It was growing alone on the ground, not on a tree.
  • Time of year: Late August
  • Smell/taste: Unknown

Easy to identify due to its unique cap and the presence of pores, this is a great example of a bolete. Boletes are defined as having a separate cap and stem with a spongy surface of pores. To be sure, I checked for the appropriate colors after bruising. Old man of the woods foraging information.

Return to example list

Chanterelle (Cantharellus sp.)

It’s definitely worth knowing how to identify the delicious chanterelle. See this page on chanterelle mushroom identification for a more in-depth article.

chanterelle in hand
chanterelle false gills
Chanterelle mushroom tops and false gills
  • Gills: None. Instead, there were wrinkled folds known as “false gills”. This is very important to look for with chanterelle identification. The pic to the right is a good example.
  • Cap/stem: The caps were slightly vase-shaped. The stems had no bulb or ring and were not hollow. Both were an orange-yellow color.
  • Spore color: Unknown
  • Bruising: Unkown
  • Habitat: On the ground at the edge of a trail in a mixed hardwood forest. I found more than one, but they did not grow in clusters.
  • Time of year: August
  • Smell/taste: They smelled slightly fruity/flowery.

The false gills, and the fact that they weren’t growing in clusters, led me to believe these were chanterelles and not poisonous jack o’lanterns. I did eat these, and they tasted great!

Return to example list

Northern Tooth (Climacodon septentrionale)

This was a fun surprise. When I saw it from the road it looked like an oyster mushroom. A closer examination revealed something else!

Identifying mushrooms - the northern tooth
  • Gills: None. Instead, there were small “teeth”, or spines, hanging from the underside of the cap. This made identification fairly easy.
  • Cap/stem: No stem. The caps were a series of overlapping, shelf-like fruiting bodies. They were whitish and very tough.
  • Spore color: Unknown
  • Bruising: Unknown
  • Habitat: Found growing on a dying maple tree.
  • Time of year: September
  • Smell/taste: Unknown

There aren’t as many mushrooms with teeth as there are with gills, and fewer still that grow on trees. The other clue here is habitat, as I found it growing on a dying maple. The northern tooth is a parasite that rots the heartwood of maple trees.

Below is a close-up of the tiny teeth.

Teeth on a northern tooth mushroom

Return to example list

Russula (Russula sp.)

russula with red cap
russula gills
Russula species
  • Gills: Gills were white and attached to the stem.
  • Cap/stem: Cap was red on top and slightly upturned. The stem was white with no ring.
  • Spore color: Spore print was whitish.
  • Bruising: Unknown
  • Habitat: Found growing on the ground among leaf litter in a mixed hardwood forest.
  • Time of year: September
  • Smell/taste: Smelled fruity but the taste was very bitter.

The spore print, white gills, and red/white color combination indicates a mushroom in the Russula genus. Yet which one? Russula mushroom identification is very difficult, with microscopic information sometimes needed. I decided on one of the more common species that fit the description, Russula emetica.

Return to example list

Honey Fungus (probably Armillaria mellea)

Mushroom identification - the honey fungus

My apologies for the washed out picture.

  • Gills: Brownish and attached to the stem.
  • Cap/stem: The caps were slightly convex with a lightish brown color. The stems had a ring around them and were brown-white.
  • Spore color: White
  • Bruising: Unknown
  • Habitat: Growing in a thick cluster on the roots of an overturned oak tree.
  • Time of year: July
  • Smell/taste: Unknown

Although these mushrooms matched all the characteristics of a honey fungus, I still took a spore print. A white spore print is an essential part of honey fungus identification.

Return to example list

I didn’t want to bore you with too much detail, but you can see the kinds of observations that you need for mushroom identification. Try to note all that you can when in the woods. Now go out there and start observing your own mushrooms. Let me know how it goes!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. vincent

    April 14, 2022 at 6:01 am

    Back in 1964-65,myself (7yrs.old) and family hiked down in a place called “the devil’s punchbowl ” in South of England when I lived there(now have lived in California,USA,since I was 9).
    My Father took the pic and it took me to now for to recover it.
    Looks exactly the same.

    Reply
    • Jenny

      April 15, 2022 at 3:44 pm

      What a great memory! There are a lot of amazing mushrooms in California! I hope you are able to get out foraging :-).

      Reply
  2. Maxine Rosen

    August 11, 2022 at 1:09 am

    Need help with this one. I live in Atlanta ga and it looks like a “man’s genitalia”Someone posted about it on Nextdoor but I lost the post and don’t remember the name. Play a game with my grandkids identifying strange things. Can you help. I do have a pic but don’t know where to send. Thanks for your help

    Reply
    • Jenny

      August 11, 2022 at 12:37 pm

      Based on your description, it sounds like a stinkhorn. You can share pics on our facebook group and folks may be able to help you. Identification usually requires more than one picture, but people may be able to point you in the right direction 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/groups/340690111324762

      Reply

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