Field Guide

Mushrooms

Showing 1 - 10 of 24 results
Media
Photo of orange pinwheel marasmius, tiny, orange, pleated, gilled mushroom
Species Types
Scientific Name
Marasmius siccus
Description
The orange pinwheel marasmius is a tiny mushroom with an orange, bell-shaped, pleated cap, white gills, and a skinny brownish stalk. It grows scattered to many on dead leaves, wood, and twigs of deciduous trees.
Media
Photo of rooted collybia, tan, thin-stalked gilled mushroom
Species Types
Scientific Name
Xerula furfuracea (Collybia radicata var. furfuracea)
Description
The rooted collybia has a moist, wrinkled, grayish brown flat cap and a long, slender stalk that continues underground. It grows singly or scattered on and around deciduous trees and stumps.
Media
a row of little brown, umbrella-shaped mushrooms along a decaying log
Species Types
Scientific Name
Various species of confusingly similar mushrooms
Description
Like the LGBs (“little gray birds”) of the birdwatchers, this is a catchall category. It includes all the small to medium-sized, hard-to-identify brownish mushroom with spores of all colors. There are many hundreds of species that fit this description!
Media
Photo of cluster of hairy rubber cup mushrooms, cup fungi with orangish centers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Galiella rufa (formerly Bulgaria rufa)
Description
The hairy rubber cup has a reddish to brownish inner surface; the outside is blackish brown and hairy. It grows in clusters on dead deciduous wood.
Media
Chicken of the Woods
Species Types
Scientific Name
Laetiporus sulphureus
Description
Sulfur-colored chicken of the woods is an edible fungus with layered, fan-shaped, fleshy caps that are orange on top and sulfur yellow below. It grows in overlapping clusters on stumps, trunks, and logs of dead or dying deciduous trees, and on living trees and buried roots.
Media
jack-o-lantern mushroom
Species Types
Scientific Name
Omphalotus illudens (formerly O. olearius)
Description
Jack-o’-lanterns are bright orange to yellowish orange, with sharp-edged gills that descend the stalk. They grow in clusters, at the base of stumps, and from buried roots of oak and other deciduous wood.
Media
Photo of velvet foot mushrooms, mature, showing black stems.
Species Types
Scientific Name
Flammulina velutipes
Description
The velvet foot, or enoki, has a tawny, sticky cap with whitish gills. The stalk is yellowish above and brownish below. They grow in clusters on deciduous logs.
Media
Photo of hen of the woods, large round mass of grayish mushrooms
Species Types
Scientific Name
Grifola frondosa
Description
Looking like a ruffled chicken, the edible hen of the woods mushroom grows like large circular bouquet of spoon-shaped caps, each grayish brown on top and white beneath, emerging from a branching, whitish base. It grows on the ground at the base of oak trees.
Media
Photo of black-staining polypore, a mushroom with tan, wavy, fan-shaped caps
Species Types
Scientific Name
Meripilus sumstinei (formerly M. giganteus)
Description
The black-staining polypore grows in large, circular clusters of many fleshy, grayish yellow, fan-shaped caps, which bruise black when cut or touched. It grows on the ground around deciduous trees, especially oaks.
Media
Photo of eastern cauliflower mushroom, tan and white cauliflower-like mushroom
Species Types
Scientific Name
Sparassis spathulata (S. herbstii)
Description
The eastern cauliflower mushroom is a large, stalkless, whitish yellow rosette with flattened, wavy, ribbonlike folds. It grows singly, at the bases of trees and often at the base of decayed oak stumps.
See Also
Media
Photo of several pinesap plants showing multiple flowers per stalk.
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
Picture of a patch of filamentous green algae floating in a stream.
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.
Media
Photo of several Indian pipe plants with flowers, rising out of leaf litter.
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..