Mushrooms
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Leotia lubrica
Description
The jelly baby is a small mushroom with a gelatinous, orangish yellow stalk and head. It grows in groups on soil in mixed woods.
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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
Polyporus badius
Description
The black-footed polypore has a smooth, wavy brown cap with whitish or tannish pores on the underside and a black, smooth, off-center stalk. It grows singly or in groups of up to several on dead wood and stumps of deciduous 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
Polyporus radicatus
Description
The rooting polypore has a scruffy, tough, yellowish-brown cap with whitish-yellow pores, and a stalk with a long, black, rootlike filament. It usually grows singly, on the ground near stumps or attached to buried roots.
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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
Scleroderma citrinum (Scleroderma aurantium)
Description
The pigskin puffball is a rounded, warted, yellowish brown ball with blackish purple flesh. It grows on the ground, on wood debris, and near trees in 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.
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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..