Medium To Big Lignicolous Brown Spored     Subfamily

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)

Gills not free
Spore print tan, orange, deep ochre, yellowish olive, olive brown, rusty or cinnamon brown or deep brown
Ring usually either absent or not membranous

Growing on wood

Diagnosis

• Cap usually more than 2" across, and sometimes up to 8; usually tan, yellow, or pumpkin-colored

Narrow down your identification:

• Cap dull brown to tan; glabrous (occasionally slimy or viscid); often cracking open like an overripe tomato in age; usually 2-3" across
  
• Fruits in great quantity in wood chips in the springtime
  
• Growing either on hardwood or in grass

• Spore print orange, rusty orange, or bright rusty brown
  
• Entire fruiting body some shade of pumpkin-color or golden yellow; some species with tints or patches of other colors, or with tiny differently colored scales.
  
• A drop of ammonia or KOH will stain the cap blackish
  
• Flesh typically yellow
  
• Taste typically bitter
  
• Often growing cestipose

• Fruiting body tough
  
• Gills often forking and cross-veined near the stalk; often easily separable from the cap
  
• Cap usually 3-4" across; margin inrolled when young
  
• Stalkless Brown, Olive, Orange or Tan Spored mushrooms go here if they are firm and substantial; small, flabby ones go in Crepidotus)

• Having more than one of the following characters:
  
• Cap slimy (all slimy MediumToBigLignicolousBrownSpored mushrooms go here)
  
• Cap covered with pointy or fibrillose scales (all MediumToBigLignicolousBrownSpored mushrooms with this sort of scales go here)
  
• Cap often yellowish

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