Welcome to Mushroom World

Welcome to Mushroom World, your resource for mushroom information. This site contains information and images of mushrooms found mainly in Europe and North America.

Many mushrooms are poisonous and some are lethally poisonous. It can be very hard to distinguish between an edible and a poisonous mushroom. We recommend, because of this, that you don't eat wild mushrooms at all, and this site does not contain any information about the edibility or toxicity of the mushrooms listed here.

There are thousands of different mushroom species, so we have tried to limit those we list to the most common ones. New species are also continuously added to the site.

Browse the database

You can browse the database from the alphabetical list or search the database based on mushroom name or some property.

Help identifying a mushroom

If you know the characteristics of a mushroom, but need help to identify it, try use our Visual list of the mushrooms in the database. You can browse mushroom pictures there and perhaps find a match.

If this site cannot help you, we recommend mushroomobserver.org, which is a community site for mushroom identifications. There are also many Facebook groups for mushroom identifications like the Mushroom Identification - public group.

Identification Quiz

We have also created a quiz where you can test how good you are at identifying fungi. You can repeat the quiz as many times as you want, each time with new questions.

Today's Mushroom

Today's mushroom is Cortinarius camphoratus (Goatcheese webcap). It grows in Europe and North America.

Description: Cortinarius camphoratus, also known as Goatcheese webcap, has a convex to an umbonate, fleshy, pale blue lilac cap and has a strong distinctive odour. It is mycorrhizal with spruce trees and thus grows in coniferous forests.

Cap buff with tints of lilac, covered with minute fibers matted on the surface. Initially convex before flattening out, sometimes developing a broad umbo. Margin initially curled inwards but uncurls as the mushroom matures. Flesh coloured lilac to purple and has no distinctive taste but an odour that has been compared to "curry powder, rotting meat, old goats or goat's cheese". Gills adnate, pale lilac at first, turning rusty brown as the spores mature. Stem solid and thickens towards the base. Roughly the same colour as the cap and covered with silky white matted fibrils up to the level of the annular zone.

Cortinarius camphoratus on the First Nature website.

Dimensions: Cap 4-10 cm diameter, stem 5-10 cm tall * 1-2 cm wide

This site contains no information about the edibility or toxicity of the mushroom.

If you are interested in this mushroom, look it up in our database. You can find more detailed pictures there.