Welcome to Mushroom World

Welcome to Mushroom World, your resource for mushroom information. On this site you can search for mushrooms in our database and read about them. You can use this information to identify fungus, but do not eat mushrooms you are not 100% certain of. Use many resources, and be skeptical of your own conclusions. It takes normally years of experience to be able to identify mushrooms reliably. The responsibility for the identification is yours; the site takes no responsibility for damage caused by wrong identifications. Please read the disclaimer.

Browse the database

You can browse the database from the alphabetical list or by going directly to the mushroom records which are listed under the categories poisonous, inedible and edible. You can also search the database based on mushroom name or some property.

Help identifying a mushroom

If you know how a mushroom looks, but need help to identify it, try our Mushroom identification helper. 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 Facebook groups for mushroom identifications like the Mushroom Identification - public group.

Today's Mushroom

Today's mushroom is Polyporus squamosus (Dryad’s Saddle). The mushroom is Edible. It grows in North America, Europe.

Description: Polyporus squamosus, also known as Cerioporus squamosus or Dryad’s Saddle, has a circular to fan-shaped bracket, covered with brown scales, a black stem positioned to one side, and a decurrent off-white to ocher tube layer. It grows annually, alone or in clusters of two or three, on broad-leaf trees, also on stumps, favouring beech, elm and sycamore.

Fruiting body can be yellow to brown and has "squamules" or scales on its upper side. On the underside it has whitish cream pores that are made up of tubes packed together closely. The tubes are between 5 and 10 mm long. The taste is not distinctive. Stem black, thick and short.

Polyporus squamosus on the Nature First Web site.
Polyporus squamosus on the MushroomExpert.Com Web site.

Dimensions: Cap 10-60 cm diameter, 0.5-5 cm thick

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