Pholiota alnicola, also know as Alder Scalycap, has a yellow, or yellow with some green intermixed hat, lemon-yellow gills (becoming cinnamon), and a ring zone on the stem. It grows solitary or more typically clustered on dead or dying deciduous trees, such as alder or birch often in damp sites.

Cap is bright yellow or yellow with some green intermixed, often with rusty brown spots. Gills are adnate to slightly decurrent, straw-yellow to rust brown. Spores are brown. Stem yellow toward top and rusty brown toward base. Ring is zone-like with pallid remnants of veil, very superior.

Similar species Three forms of Pholiota alnicoloa are sometimes classified separately. Pholiota salicola grows on willow, and it tastes bitter; Pholiota flavida and Pholiota pinicola grow on conifers.

Pholiota alnicola on the First Nature Web site.
Pholiota alnicola on the MushroomExpert.Com Web site.

Pholiota aurivella, also known as Golden Scalycap, is a medium to large, orange-yellow, rounded agaric with scattered, reddish-orange scales embedded in the surface.

Cap Bright yellow, convex to broadly humped. Surface scales embedded in a slime layer, sometimes disappearing in rain. Gills close, adnate (broadly attached) at first; yellowish to reddish brown. Spores are reddish-brown. Stem central or off center, cylindrical, solid, firm. Surface cottony above poorly developed ring, fibrillose to scaly below.

Similar species Pholiota jahnii and Pholiota limonella which has less distinctive scales.

Pholiota aurivella on the First Nature Web site.

Pholiota limonella is a medium to large, orange-yellow, rounded agaric with a slimy cap. The mushroom grows in clusters on downed logs, standing dead trees, and stumps.

Cap Bright yellow, convex, becoming broadly convex, broadly bell-shaped, or nearly flat and sticky or slimy. Gills close, adnate (broadly attached), yellowish to rusty brown. Spores are rusty-brown. Stem cylindrical, solid, firm. Surface cottony above poorly developed ring, fibrillose to scaly below.

Similar species Pholiota aurivella has more distinctive scales.

Pholiota limonella on the Mushroom Expert Web site.

Pholiota squarrosa, also known as Dry Scaly Pholiota, has a yellowish-brown large hat that is covered with brown scales. The gills are light yellow to brown. The foot is the same colour as the hat and protruding scales. The mushroom grows in small or large clumps on hardwood, often at the base of live or dead hardwoods.

Cap first bell-shaped to rounded and later somewhat flattened, yellowish-brown to tawny in older specimens. The scales on the cap are yellowish to tawny and recurved. Flesh pallid yellow and firm. Gills are covered by a partial veil when young and have a greenish-brown colour; mature gills are rusty brown and crowded closely together, attached to the stem (adnate), and usually notched (sinuate). Spores are brown. Stem coloured as cap above, becoming tinged rust towards the base, more or less equal or tapering downwards, scaly as the cap. The ring is ragged and almost zone-like.

Similar species Smaller and paler Pholiota squarrosoides is highly sticky-slimy beneath the scales. It also occurs on deciduous trees but is rare in Europe, more common in North America. Gymnopilys junonius found in the same habitat, lacks the distinctive cap scales.

Pholiota squarrosa on the Nature First Web site.
Pholiota squarrosa on the MushroomExpert.Com Web site.

Polyporus ciliatus, also known as Fringed Polypore, is a polypore that grows on fallen branches of deciduous trees annually on spring and early summer.

Fruiting body upper surface greyish brown or yellowish-brown, convex at first, flattening with a depressed (umbilicate) centre. Particularly towards the margin, the cap surface is usually covered in tiny bristly hairs. The flesh is white and leathery. Stem variable in colour, often pale yellowish brown or tawny-buff, more or less equal, typically curved and sometimes thickened at the base. Pores whitish cream to buff, circular, elongating with age.

Polyporus ciliatus on the www.first-nature.com web site.

Psathyrella candolleana, also known as Common Park Psathyrella, is a smallish agaric that has a cap whose colour varies between white and golden brown and the margin is irregular and radially asymmetrical, which is a defining characteristic of this species. The mushroom grows typically tufted on soil close to broad-leaf trees, also on stumps and other woody debris.

Cap convex to umbonate, yellow-brown in colour, as dry ivory white. The margin is thin and has veil remains as young. The flesh is white and thin. Gills at first pallid grey with liliaceous tinge, grey- to chocolate-brown as mature, adnate or adnexed, crowded. Spores are dark brown. Stem white, fragile, hollow and smooth. It has no ring.

Similar species The much darker Psathyrella spadiceogrisea occurs along forest paths and in similar sites in late spring and early summer.

Psathyrella candolleana on the First Nature Web site.
Psathyrella candolleana on the MushroomExpert.Com Web site.

Psilocybe semilanceata, also known as Liberty Cap, is a hallucinogenic mushroom that contains the psychoactive compounds psilocybin. It has a distinctive yellowish conical to bell-shaped cap with a small nipple-like protrusion on the top. The mushroom grows in scattered trooping groups, on soil amongst grass in lawns and pastures favouring hilly sites.

Cap pallid ochraceous-brown, hygrophanous, drying buff and varies in shape from sharply conical to bell-shaped, often with a prominent papilla. It does not change shape considerably as it ages. The cap margin is initially rolled inward but unrolls to become straight or even curled upwards in maturity. Gills moderately crowded together, and they have a narrowly adnexed to almost free attachment to the stem. Spores are purplish-brown. Stem slender yellowish-brown and usually slightly thicker towards the base.

Similar species Psilocybe fimetaria has a white veil at the margin. It grows in horse manure. There are also several other species the mushroom can be confused with.

Psilocybe semilanceata on the www.first-nature.com web site.

Ramaria lutea is a medium-sized, ochre-yellow fungus that is repeatedly branching and coral-like. It grows solitary or more typically in extensive troops on woody debris.

Fruiting body ochraceous tinged buff, becoming darker with age, repeatedly branching coral-line with pointed forked tips. The branches are cylindrical or laterally compressed arising from a pallid stout stem. The flesh is white, elastic and though.

Similar species The Ramaria genus comprises approximately 200 species of which many are so similar to each other that they can be distinguished only with microscope.

Ramaria genus on Wikipedia.