Macrofungi

Covers mushrooms and other non-lichenized fungi that form multicellular fruiting bodies large enough to be seen with the unaided eye.

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Common names beginning with B:
Baeos (Psilocybe baeocystis)
Description: Sticky, conical, brown cap with brownish gills and off-white stalk; bruising blue.
Habitat: Scattered to numerous, in wood chips, on decayed wood, and decaying moss.
Spores: September-November
Conifer-cone baeospora (Baeospora myosura)
Description: Small, tan to whitish cap with crowded, white gills and white to brownish stalk; on fallen conifer cones
Substrate: Spruce and Douglas fir cones
Spores: September to October
Lavender baeospora (Baeospora myriadophylla)
Description: Fresh specimens are quite striking when plucked from a log and turned over to reveal the crowded, narrow, lilac gills. The thin-fleshed caps and the stipes are usually brownish, occasionally with lilac tones, and develop grayish or paler tones with age or loss of moisture. The tough, hollow stipe is usually somewhat pruinose above and has white short hairs on the base. B. myriadophylla is an uncommon fungus and usually occurs in small numbers in fall or spring.
Substrate: Hardwood logs and stumps
Spores: June to October
Carbon balls (Daldinia grandis)
Tippler's bane (Coprinopsis atramentaria)
Distribution: Broad
Habitat: Occurs widely in many natural and disturbed habitats, including gardens and other urban settings
Swamp beacon (Mitrula elegans)
Habitat: Occurs on very wet plant litter or even on litter submerged in cold, shallow, running water.
Bear's-head (Hericium abietis)
Distribution: Common in PNW
Habitat: It grows on conifer logs, especially those of fir and hemlock.
Bog bell (Galerina paludosa)
Funeral bell (Galerina marginata)
Habitat: It occurs on stumps and logs of conifers and hardwoods, or grows from pieces of buried wood, wood chips, or other woody debris.
Hairy leg bell (Galerina vittiformis)
Brown birch-bolete (Leccinum scabrum)
Habitat: Common in urban and suburban settings and less so in natural habitats. Occurs with birch.
Fluted bird's-nest (Cyathus striatus)
Habitat: It can be common in gardens where woody materials have been added to the planting beds.
Substrate: Cyathus striatus occurs in a number of different habitats on decaying plant materials such as wood chips, small branches, and needles.
Splash-cup bird's-nest (Cyathus stercoreus)
Streaked bird's-nest (Cyathus striatus)
Habitat: It can be common in gardens where woody materials have been added to the planting beds.
Substrate: Cyathus striatus occurs in a number of different habitats on decaying plant materials such as wood chips, small branches, and needles.
Black knot of cheery (Apiosporina morbosa)
Description: fruitbody 3.5-14 cm long, 1-2.5 cm thick, fusiform to clavate or irregularly elongated; outer surface hard, initially olive-green soon becoming black, carbonaceous, finely roughened, typically furrowed and cracked, stalkless; flesh white when very young, soon black and brittle; perithecia embedded near the surface in a single layer
Substrate: Cherry branches
Jellylike black urn (Plectania melastoma)
Black-foot (Polyporus elegans)
Black-leg (Polyporus badius)
Blewit (Lepista nuda)
Wood blewit (Lepista nuda)
Stuntz's blue-legs (Psilocybe stuntzii)
Description: Sticky, brownish cap with brownish gills and brownish, ringed stalk; bruising blue.
Distribution: It is not often found in natural habitats. It is another species apparently confined to the Pacific Coast, particularly the PNW.
Habitat: P. stuntzii occurs frequently in well mulched newly planted lawns, as well as in wood chips and other landscape settings.
Substrate: Coniferous wood-chip mulch
Spores: September-December
Blue-ringers (Psilocybe stuntzii)
Description: Sticky, brownish cap with brownish gills and brownish, ringed stalk; bruising blue.
Distribution: It is not often found in natural habitats. It is another species apparently confined to the Pacific Coast, particularly the PNW.
Habitat: P. stuntzii occurs frequently in well mulched newly planted lawns, as well as in wood chips and other landscape settings.
Substrate: Coniferous wood-chip mulch
Spores: September-December
Blusher (Amanita novinupta)
The blusher (Amanita rubescens)
Description: Hemispherical cap that becomes flat to broadly umbonate. The surface is smooth but scattered with small patches of grayish veil remains, brown, paler toward the margin, bruising or aging pinkish. The gills are white. The stem is white at first, bruising or aging pinkish, scaly below the fragile ring, with a scurfy, bulbous base.
Habitat: woodlands
Substrate: broadleaf trees and conifers
Grey bolbitius (Bolbitius aleuriatus)
Substrate: rotting wood, sawdust, and humus
Spores: fall and winter
Admirable bolete (Boletellus mirabilis)
Aspen bolete (Leccinum insigne)
Habitat: Associated with aspen
Birch bolete (Leccinum scabrum)
Habitat: Common in urban and suburban settings and less so in natural habitats. Occurs with birch.
Bitter beech bolete (Boletus calopus)
Description: Boletus calopus has bitter-flesh that differs from B. coniferarum by its more noticeable reticulate stipe that is red in part.
Habitat: Conifer forests
Bitter bolete (Boletus calopus)
Description: Boletus calopus has bitter-flesh that differs from B. coniferarum by its more noticeable reticulate stipe that is red in part.
Habitat: Conifer forests
Bitter bolete (Boletus rubripes)
Distribution: Widespread but not particularly common in the PNW region.
Habitat: It was described from coastal conifer and mixed forests in California, but in the PNW, occurs in montane conifer forests.
Spores: summer and fall
Bogus bolete (Gastroboletus turbinatus)
Description: The genus Gastroboletus is used for secotioid fungi that are similar to species of Boletus. Usually a cap is present and typically it is rounded or flattened with the margin turned down. However, in G. ruber (Zeller) Cázares & Trappe (= Truncocolumella rubra Zeller), the cap is so reduced that it looks like a false truffle without a complete peridium. In most Gastroboletus species the tubes are elongated, curved or contorted, and often olive to brown. The stipe is usually short and stout or sometimes forms a columella. G. turbinatus is our most common species, occurring from spring through fall. At first glance, the fruitbody looks like a bolete, such as Boletus chrysenteron---the cap is velvety and brown with yellowish and reddish areas, the stipe is rather short, pointed below, yellowish with small reddish scales and granules, and the pores are rather large, reddish and stain blue. The tubes are long, curved, yellow to greenish yellow and clearly indicate its secotioid nature. The flesh is yellowish, with some red just below the cap cuticle, and the whole interior stains blue after cutting.
Distribution: Broad
Boring brown bolete (Boletus subtomentosus)
Description: Boletus subtomentosus is a large olive-brown to yellow-brown or brown species. It bruises blueish or blueish green, although not always strongly.
Bragger's bolete (Boletellus mirabilis)
Butter bolete (Boletus appendiculatus)
Habitat: oaks and tanoaks
Chestnut bolete (Gyroporus castaneus)
Cracked-cap bolete (Xerocomellus chrysenteron)
Distribution: Northern hemisphere.
Habitat: Temperate mixed hardwood/coniferous forests.
Substrate: Soil.
Dark bolete (Porphyrellus porphyrosporus)
Distribution: Widespread but not abundant.
Habitat: P. porphyrosporus occurs in coastal and low elevation conifer forests.
Dusky bolete (Porphyrellus porphyrosporus)
Distribution: Widespread but not abundant.
Habitat: P. porphyrosporus occurs in coastal and low elevation conifer forests.
Elegant bolete (Suillus grevillei)
Habitat: Associated with larch.
Gastroid bolete (Gastroboletus turbinatus)
Description: The genus Gastroboletus is used for secotioid fungi that are similar to species of Boletus. Usually a cap is present and typically it is rounded or flattened with the margin turned down. However, in G. ruber (Zeller) Cázares & Trappe (= Truncocolumella rubra Zeller), the cap is so reduced that it looks like a false truffle without a complete peridium. In most Gastroboletus species the tubes are elongated, curved or contorted, and often olive to brown. The stipe is usually short and stout or sometimes forms a columella. G. turbinatus is our most common species, occurring from spring through fall. At first glance, the fruitbody looks like a bolete, such as Boletus chrysenteron---the cap is velvety and brown with yellowish and reddish areas, the stipe is rather short, pointed below, yellowish with small reddish scales and granules, and the pores are rather large, reddish and stain blue. The tubes are long, curved, yellow to greenish yellow and clearly indicate its secotioid nature. The flesh is yellowish, with some red just below the cap cuticle, and the whole interior stains blue after cutting.
Distribution: Broad
Gilled bolete (Phylloporus rhodoxanthus)
Granulated bolete (Suillus granulatus)
Grayish larch bolete (Suillus viscidus)
Habitat: Associated with larch.
Heavy bolete (Suillus ponderosus)
Hollow bolete (Suillus cavipes)
Habitat: associated with larch when it occurs in the PNW.
Hollow-stalked larch bolete (Suillus cavipes)
Habitat: associated with larch when it occurs in the PNW.
Jellied bolete (Suillus umbonatus)
Distribution: It is broadly distributed in the Northern Hemisphere.
Habitat: It is rather abundant at times in lodgepole pine forests in late summer and early fall, and in shore pine woodlands in fall, sometimes growing in clusters and lining the edges of moist depressions.
King bolete (Boletus edulis)
Habitat: Occurs with conifers.
Lake's bolete (Suillus lakei)
Habitat: Occurs under Douglas fir.
Larch bolete (Suillus grevillei)
Habitat: Associated with larch.
Madrone bolete (Leccinum manzanitae)
Habitat: Associated with Arbutus and Arctostaphylos.
Substrate: Soil.
Manzanita bolete (Leccinum manzanitae)
Habitat: Associated with Arbutus and Arctostaphylos.
Substrate: Soil.
Milk bolete (Suillus granulatus)
Northern pine bolete (Suillus albivelatus)
Habitat: S. albivelatus occurs in mixed conifer forests and appears to be associated with pines.
Orange-capped bolete (Leccinum aurantiacum)
Pepper bolete (Chalciporus piperatus)
Description: Also known as Boletus piperatus, Chalciporus piperatus is unique among PNW boletes in its overall coloration, small to medium size, and rather slender stipe. The cap is viscid when fresh but may become somewhat fibrillose and cracked in older specimens, reddish brown to rust brown or vinaceous brown, often with a mix of yellowish brown, and sometimes becoming more ochraceous brown in age. The tubes are yellowish to reddish yellow and the pores are angular, red to reddish brown, and darken when bruised. The stipe is rather slender and reddish brown or colored like the cap, except for the base which is covered with bright yellow mycelium. The flesh of the cap is yellowish buff or somewhat vinaceous to pinkish, and in the stipe brownish buff above and bright yellow in the base. The name “piperatus” comes from its peppery taste.
Distribution: It is widespread and can be rather common in some years, but usually is not abundant.
Habitat: woodland
Peppery bolete (Chalciporus piperatus)
Description: Also known as Boletus piperatus, Chalciporus piperatus is unique among PNW boletes in its overall coloration, small to medium size, and rather slender stipe. The cap is viscid when fresh but may become somewhat fibrillose and cracked in older specimens, reddish brown to rust brown or vinaceous brown, often with a mix of yellowish brown, and sometimes becoming more ochraceous brown in age. The tubes are yellowish to reddish yellow and the pores are angular, red to reddish brown, and darken when bruised. The stipe is rather slender and reddish brown or colored like the cap, except for the base which is covered with bright yellow mycelium. The flesh of the cap is yellowish buff or somewhat vinaceous to pinkish, and in the stipe brownish buff above and bright yellow in the base. The name “piperatus” comes from its peppery taste.
Distribution: It is widespread and can be rather common in some years, but usually is not abundant.
Habitat: woodland
Queen bolete (Boletus regineus)
Description: Boletus regineus is the darkest species, with almost black caps at times, and often a whitish bloom over the surface when young. It is associated with oaks and madrone.
Substrate: Oaks and madrone
Red-capped butter bolete (Boletus regius)
Habitat: oak
Spores: Spring, summer, and fall
Red-cracked bolete (Xerocomellus chrysenteron)
Distribution: Northern hemisphere.
Habitat: Temperate mixed hardwood/coniferous forests.
Substrate: Soil.
Red-cracking bolete (Xerocomellus chrysenteron)
Distribution: Northern hemisphere.
Habitat: Temperate mixed hardwood/coniferous forests.
Substrate: Soil.
Red-pored bolete (Boletus pulcherrimus)
Spores: summer and fall
Red-stemmed bitter bolete (Boletus rubripes)
Distribution: Widespread but not particularly common in the PNW region.
Habitat: It was described from coastal conifer and mixed forests in California, but in the PNW, occurs in montane conifer forests.
Spores: summer and fall
Rosy bolete (Suillus ochraceoroseus)
Habitat: Occurs with larch in higher and interior conifer forests, mostly in late spring and summer.
Rosy larch bolete (Suillus ochraceoroseus)
Habitat: Occurs with larch in higher and interior conifer forests, mostly in late spring and summer.
Ruby bolete (Boletus rubellus)
Habitat: Grassy areas, mossy lawns, or along the edges of trails, always near trees such as oaks, cottonwood, willow, and basswood or linden.
Short-stemmed bolete (Suillus brevipes)
Habitat: It occurs primarily with two-needle pines during late summer and fall
Spring king bolete (Boletus rex-veris)
Suede bolete (Boletus subtomentosus)
Description: Boletus subtomentosus is a large olive-brown to yellow-brown or brown species. It bruises blueish or blueish green, although not always strongly.
Weeping bolete (Suillus granulatus)
Western painted bolete (Suillus lakei)
Habitat: Occurs under Douglas fir.
White king bolete (Boletus barrowsii)
Description: Boletus barrowsii is one of the “western edulis” species (see B. edulis). It is distinguished by its overall whitish to pale tan coloration, somewhat soft suede-like texture of the cap surface, strong odor when drying, and characteristic occurrence in the mountains of the southwestern U.S., most often under ponderosa pine. Generally considered to occur only in the Southwest, there have been sporadic reports of it occurring in places such as Idaho and southern California, under trees other than ponderosa pine. In Seattle, a very similar mushroom is fairly common in late spring under oaks and species of Tilia, such as lindens and basswood. Although it was felt that this had to be a different species, preliminary DNA analysis suggests it is very close to B. barrowsii.
Distribution: Southwest United States
Habitat: Under ponderosa pines
Spores: midsummer
Woolly pine bolete (Suillus tomentosus)
Distribution: Very common and abundant in the PNW.
Habitat: S. tomentosus occurs primarily under lodgepole and shore pines.
Yellow-cracked bolete (Boletus subtomentosus)
Description: Boletus subtomentosus is a large olive-brown to yellow-brown or brown species. It bruises blueish or blueish green, although not always strongly.
Zeller's bolete (Boletus zelleri)
Distribution: Common in coastal and low elevation conifer forests.
Habitat: Occurs in urban areas, parks, along trails, and in other areas where conifers occur.
Alice Eastwood's boletus (Boletus eastwoodiae)
Conifer boletus (Boletus coniferarum)
Habitat: Low- to mid-elevation conifer forests
Smith's Boletus (Boletus smithii)
Yellow-fleshed Boletus (Xerocomellus chrysenteron)
Distribution: Northern hemisphere.
Habitat: Temperate mixed hardwood/coniferous forests.
Substrate: Soil.
Blackedge bonnet (Mycena pelianthina)
Bleeding bonnet (Mycena sanguinolenta)
Bulbous bonnet (Mycena stylobates)
Burgundydrop bonnet (Mycena haematopus)
Substrate: The fruitbodies grow in groups, often in loose clusters, on both hardwood and conifer logs and can get quite large (for a mycena).
Spores: spores are broadly ellipsoid, 7--12 x 4--7 µm
Coldfoot bonnet (Mycena amicta)
Spores: ellipsoid spores (6--10 x 3.5--5.5 µm)
Common bonnet (Mycena galericulata)
Cryptic bonnet (Mycena picta)
Dripping bonnet (Roridomyces roridus)
Fairy bonnet (Coprinellus disseminatus)
Frosty bonnet (Mycena adscendens)
Golden edge bonnet (Mycena aurantiomarginata)
Distribution: Conifer forest along the Pacific Coast Known to be from Europe as well
Spores: ellipsoid, 7--9 x 4--5 µm, smooth and amyloid, and the cheilocystidia are club-shaped with numerous short projections, somewhat like a mace
Iodine bonnet (Mycena filopes)
Lilac bonnet (Mycena pura)
Mealy bonnet (Mycena cinerella)
Milking bonnet (Mycena galopus)
Nitrous bonnet (Mycena leptocephala)
Orange bonnet (Mycena acicula)
Pink bonnet (Mycena rosella)
Pinkedge bonnet (Mycena capillaripes)
Purple edge bonnet (Mycena purpureofusca)
Rooting bonnet (Mycena megaspora)
Sideshoot bonnet (Mycena latifolia)
Snapping bonnet (Mycena vitilis)
Golden bootleg (Phaeolepiota aurea)
Distribution: Widely distributed
Habitat: Usually found in the north temperate zone in disturbed areas of forests, such as along roadsides.
Pink bottom (Agaricus campestris)
Description: The popular edible meadow mushroom, as both its scientific and common names suggest, is usually found in fields or pastures (campestris means growing in a field in Latin), especially those rich in manure. The largest fruitings tend to occur when warm and wet weather coincide. It is a stocky, medium-sized, clean white mushroom with bright pink gills when young (another common name is pink bottom); however, as it ages it tends to become brown overall with dark chocolate gills. The cap may be somewhat fibrillose to scaly and, typically, the cuticle extends past the margin, like an overhanging table-cloth. The ring usually is thin and not persistent, and the base of the stipe often is tapered. It occurs nearly worldwide.
Distribution: Worldwide
Habitat: Found in fields or pastures, especially those rich in manure
Dingy bowlcap (Lepista tarda)
Earth box (Geopyxis carbonaria)
Habitat: Occurs after conifer forest fires
Spores: The spores are smooth, ellipsoid, 11--18 x 6--9 µm, and do not contain prominent oil drops.
Alder bracket (Mensularia radiata)
Artist's bracket (Ganoderma applanatum)
Aspen bracket (Phellinus tremulae)
Big smoky bracket (Bjerkandera fumosa)
Description: Bjerkandera fumosa can be most easily identified in how it differes from B. adusta. B. fumosa has thicker flesh and buff to pale smoky gray spores and a dark like above the base of the tubes (cut through fruitbody).
Substrate: decaying hardwood logs and woody materials
Bitter bracket (Oligoporus stipticus)
Blushing bracket (Daedaleopsis confragosa)
Brownflesh bracket (Coriolopsis gallica)
Cinnamon bracket (Hapalopilus nidulans)
Clustered bracket (Inonotus cuticularis)
Conifer blueing bracket (Oligoporus caesius)
Cushion bracket (Phellinus pomaceus)
Hairy bracket (Trametes hirsuta)
Habitat: Hardwood logs or woody substrates
Hazel bracket (Skeletocutis nivea)
Lacquered bracket (Ganoderma lucidum)
Distribution: Europe.
Lumpy bracket (Trametes gibbosa)
Purplepore bracket (Trichaptum abietinum)
Red-belted bracket (Fomitopsis pinicola)
Habitat: Occurs on conifers and hardwoods.
Smoky bracket (Bjerkandera adusta)
Description: Bjerkandera adusta forms flat or shelf-like, often overlapping, tough fruitbodies with smoke gray tubes and small, angular dark smoky gray or blackish pores. The surface of the caps is tomentose to somewhat hairy, cream to butterscotch in color, and not distinctly zoned. It is rather frequent on decaying hardwood logs and woody materials, rarely on conifers.
Habitat: Woodland
Substrate: stumps, logs, and dead trees
Tinder bracket (Fomes fomentarius)
Willow bracket (Phellinus igniarius)
Red tree brain (Peniophora rufa)
Yellow brain (Tremella mesenterica)
Blackening brittlegill (Russula nigricans)
Description: a large, hard mushroom, with brownish or blackish brown cap and flesh that turns red when bruised; it blackens almost completely in age. The spores are white and the taste is mild to slightly acrid.
Distribution: Broad Widespread in Northern Hemisphere
Habitat: woodlands
Bloody brittlegill (Russula sanguinaria)
Copper brittlegill (Russula decolorans)
Description: Cap is copper-orange to dull orange to reddish brown. The gills are white to pale ocher. The stipe is white and smooth and all parts discolor gray to black when handled or cut.
Habitat: woodland; northern and montane conifer forests
Crab brittlegill (Russula xerampelina)
Distribution: Broad
Habitat: Variety of forest types
Crowded brittlegill (Russula densifolia)
Fragile brittlegill (Russula fragilis)
Description: Small to small-medium species with very fragile flesh that becomes water-soaked very quickly. The cap color is generally a mix of watery purple, pink, and olivaceous green on a whitish to grayish background, and the cap edge is translucent-striate. The spores are white, the odor mild or pleasantly fruity, and the taste very acrid. It occurs singly or in small groups, often on or near well rotted wood.
Distribution: Broad
Habitat: Near or well-rotted wood
Greasy green brittlegill (Russula heterophylla)
Green brittlegill (Russula aeruginea)
Lilac brittlegill (Russula lilacea)
Olive brittlegill (Russula olivacea)
Pelargonium brittlegill (Russula pelargonia)
Powdery brittlegill (Russula parazurea)
Stinking brittlegill (Russula foetens)
Tardy brittlegill (Russula cessans)
Winecork brittlegill (Russula adusta)
Distribution: Western
Habitat: Conifer forests
Yellow swamp brittlegill (Russula claroflava)
Description: Cap round, bright lemon-yellow to yellow, convex to flat, slightly sticky when wet. Gills start out white and slowly turn pale ocher. the stem is white and smooth. Occasionally gills and stipe turn gray-black when bruised or become gray with age.
Habitat: wet woodlands, marshes, swamps, and bogs with birch
Substrate: moss
Chestnut brittlestem (Psathyrella spadicea)
Common stump brittlestem (Psathyrella piluliformis)
Distribution: It is common throughout the U.S., including the PNW
Medusa brittlestem (Psathyrella caput-medusae)
Spring brittlestem (Psathyrella spadiceogrisea)
Blueleg brownie (Psilocybe cyanescens)
Description: Tacky, wavy, brown cap, fading to yellowish, with brownish gills and whitish stalk; bruising blue.
Habitat: Several to many, in coniferous mulch
Spores: September-November
Mountain brownie (Psilocybe montana)
Description: Small, dark brown mushroom; in moss.
Distribution: Has been reported from much of the temperate Northern Hemisphere.
Habitat: Common at higher elevations
Substrate: Moss
Spores: July-September
Olive brownie (Hypholoma myosotis)
Sphagnum brownie (Hypholoma elongatum)
Brunnea (Ramaria testaceoflava)
Penny bun (Boletus edulis)
Habitat: Occurs with conifers.
Black witch's butter (Exidia glandulosa)
Witch's butter (Exidia glandulosa)
Witch's butter (Tremella mesenterica)
Butter-cap (Rhodocollybia butyracea)
Habitat: Conifer forests
Spores: pale pinkish buff, relatively large (mostly 7-9 x 3.5-4 µm) and tear-shaped, almond-shaped, or ellipsoid