Welcome to Mushroom World
Step into the enchanting world of fungi with Mushroom World – your trusted companion for learning about mushrooms.
Whether you're a curious beginner or a seasoned nature enthusiast, our site provides clear, accessible information and beautiful images to help you better understand and appreciate the mushrooms you encounter.
If you're curious about what fungi actually are, and how they differ from plants and animals, be sure to visit our what are fungi? page for an easy-to-understand explanation.
With thousands of mushroom species known to science, we've chosen to focus on the most common and easily recognisable ones. Each entry includes helpful descriptions, identification tips, and high-quality images, and we’re always working to expand our collection with new species and updated content.
Come and explore the wonders of mushrooms with us. We hope you find our site informative, inspiring, and a valuable resource on your journey of mushroom discovery.
What you can do on Mushroom World
Browse the database
Explore mushrooms from the alphabetical list or search by name or properties.
Identify a mushroom
Know some characteristics but not the name? Use our mushroom identification helper to narrow it down.
New to identification? Start with identification basics.
Test your knowledge
Try our identification quiz and see how many mushrooms you recognise. Each run gives you new questions.
Upload your photos
Have good mushroom photos to share? Use the upload form and we will see if we can include them on the site.
Today's Mushroom
A quick highlight from our database
Today's mushroom is Cortinarius armillatus (Red-banded Cort). It grows in North America, Europe.
Dimensions: Cap 4-12 cm diameter, stem 6-12 cm tall * 1-3 cm thick
Description:
Cortinarius armillatus, commonly known as the Red-banded Cortinarius, is a medium or large, rounded or humped reddish-brown agaric on a thick bulbous stalk with cinnabar red bands. The mushroom grows solitary or clustered on soil in mixed hardwood-conifer forests, especially spruced ones.
Cap bell-shaped at first, later flattening out, vividly rust-brown becoming slightly paler with age, with small fibrous scales, often with reddish cortinal remnants forming a belt at the margin. Gills dark rust-brown, broad, distant and shallowly sinuate. Stem is a pallid cap colour, streaked with fibrils, more or less equal but markedly swollen at the base. The ring is made of velar remnants forming one or more orange-red median or inferior ring zones. Flesh ilight brown. Spore print rusty reddish-brown.
Microscopic Features: The spores are ellipsoidal, with a size range of 9-12 x 5-7µm. They possess small warts on their surface and demonstrate dextrinoid properties.
Cortinarius armillatus on the First Nature Web site.
Cortinarius armillatus on the MushroomExpert.Com Web site.
If you are interested in this mushroom, look it up in our database for more detailed photographs and additional information.
Many mushrooms are poisonous, and some can be lethally toxic. Distinguishing between edible and poisonous mushrooms can be very challenging. Therefore, we strongly advise against consuming wild mushrooms. This website does not contain any information about the edibility or toxicity of mushrooms.
Although efforts have been made to ensure accuracy on this website, the information may contain errors and omissions. Therefore, all content provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be relied upon or used as a basis for consuming any plants or mushrooms.
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