Mushrooms
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Bondarzewia berkeleyi
Description
Berkeley’s polypore grows in rosettes or clusters of fleshy, cream-colored caps, with whitish pores that descend the stalk. Look for them on the ground near the bases of trees.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Mutinus elegans
Description
The elegant stinkhorn is a long, tapered, pinkish orange column with a greenish brown, smelly slime covering the top and a white cup around the base. It grows on leafy debris, mulch piles, and rotting wood.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Calvatia gigantea (Langermannia gigantea)
Description
The giant puffball is a huge, white, smooth ball with a completely white interior that becomes yellowish green with age. It grows in open pastures, woods, and lawns.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Laetiporus cincinnatus
Description
Pale chicken of the woods has layered, fan-shaped, fleshy caps that are orange to pinkish orange on top and white below. This edible fungus grows in overlapping clusters or rosettes on stumps, trunks, and logs of dead or dying deciduous trees, and on living trees and buried roots.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Hericium coralloides (formerly H. ramosum)
Description
The comb tooth is a branched, whitish mass on fallen logs and decaying deciduous trees. Its branches are covered with tufts of hanging, toothlike spines.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Lycoperdon pyriforme (Morganella pyriformis)
Description
This is a pear-shaped, yellowish brownish puffball with a pore at the top. Pear-shaped puffballs typically grow in large clusters on decaying wood, logs, and stumps.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Leucoagaricus americanus (Lepiota americana)
Description
The reddening lepiota is a large, reddish brown mushroom with a scaly cap and a ring on the stalk; it bruises dark red. It grows singly or in clusters in mulch piles, waste areas, and around stumps.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Coprinopsis atramentaria (formerly Coprinus atramentarius)
Description
The alcohol inky has a gray-brown, bell-shaped, radially lined cap and inky gills. It grows in clusters on the ground, usually near rotting or buried wood.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Lepista nuda (Clitocybe nuda; Tricholoma nudum)
Description
The blewit grows scattered in open areas, in mulch piles, and along paths. All parts of this mushroom—cap, gills and stalk—are violet to tan.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Laccaria laccata
Description
The common laccaria has a small, brownish pink cap with a central depression; the gills and stalk are a pale pinkish brown. Grows scattered or in groups in poor or sandy soil in mixed woods.
See Also
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Monotropa hypopitys
Description
Pinesap is a plant that puts the "wild" in wildflower! It lacks chlorophyll, so its roots connect to fungi underground and absorb nutrients from the fungi.
Media
Species Types
Scientific Name
Cladophora, Pithophora, and Spirogyra spp., and others
Description
Filamentous green algae forms green, cottony masses that are free-floating or attached to rocks, debris, or other plants.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Monotropa uniflora
Description
Indian pipe lacks chlorophyll, so it is white, not green. Below ground, its roots join with fungi that connect to tree roots. This plant, then, takes nourishment indirectly from the trees.
About Mushrooms in Missouri
Mushrooms are a lot like plants, but they lack chlorophyll and have to take nutrients from other materials. Mushrooms are neither plants nor animals. They are in a different kingdom — the fungi. Fungi include the familiar mushroom-forming species, plus the yeasts, molds, smuts, and rusts.
Always be cautious when eating edible mushrooms. Be absolutely sure of the ID, and only eat a small amount the first time you try it to avoid a reaction..