Bright Pluteus     Section

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)

Spores pink or reddish

Gills free
Often growing on wood

Lacking 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

Diagnosis

• Cap bright red, orange, yellow, or fulvous

Narrow down your identification:

Cap up to 1 1/4" across; bright yellow when young, becoming fulvous in age; sometimes wrinkled at the disk
Stem yellow
Gills white or yellow, before becoming colored by spores
On deciduous wood

Cap up to 3" across; bright red to reddish orange, fading to yellow
Stem white or yellow, becoming reddish at the base
On deciduous wood

Cap up to 1 1/4" across; bright yellow when young, becoming fulvous in age; never wrinkled
Stem white
Gills white or yellow, before becoming colored by spores
On deciduous wood

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