Key to Gilled Mushrooms KeyThis 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.
Agaricales OrderFruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)
Pink Spored SuborderSpores pink or reddish
Plutaceae FamilyGills free
Often growing on wood
Pluteus GenusLacking a volva
Growing on wood or woody debris
Typically bluntly conical or campanulate when young, becoming umbonate (often a flat cap with a very small umbo) in age
Often somewhat scaly or fibrillose on the disk
White Pluteus Section
Diagnosis
- Cap white or light grey; sometimes with more darkly-colored fibrils
Narrow down your identification:
Pluteus pellitusCap up to 4" across; glabrous
Entire fruiting body white, until the gills get colored by the spores
On deciduous wood
Pluteus petasatusCap up to 6" across; whitish; disk browner or greyer from scales or fibrils, often cracked
Often cestipose
Stalk sometimes virgate, darkening at the base in age
Pluteus tomentosulusCap up to 4" across; covered with minute fur
Entire fruiting body white, until the gills get colored by the spores