Top 8 Most Common Mushrooms in Florida

It's hard to mistake this mushroom for another. The aptly-named purple-spored puffball has a large, round, or pear-shaped fruiting body and is purple or chocolate-brown in color (with spores to match). Purple-spored puffballs are found in prairies and meadows across North America and Australia.

The anemone stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra) looks like a creature straight from the depths of the ocean…or perhaps a horror movie! This Australian native starts fruiting with a white, egg-like ball that breaks open to reveal bright red tentacle-like fingers that spread toward the sky with radial symmetry and the odor of rotting meat. It has spread to tropical and sub-tropical areas around the world and is potentially poisonous.

The shaggy mane mushroom is commonly found in North American and European grasslands. Some peoples foraged for its young egg-shaped caps, but it has more recently been found to be a bioaccumulator of heavy metals, meaning it pulls toxic metals up from the soil where it grows. As a result, shaggy manes should not be eaten. The mushrooms usually appear in clusters or “fairy rings.”

The odd shape cap of the fringed sawgill can be spotted from afar by its fuzzy, almost wig-like appearance. The cap is predominately dark tan towards the concave center but fades to a crisp white along the edges and gills. Size ranges from thumb-sized to dinner plate size.

In Northern Asia and Europe, fly agaric grows under trees near the winter solstice and is collected for ritual use tied to the season. Its characteristic shape and coloring are still ubiquitous in many European fairy tale illustrations and Christmas traditions. It is highly toxic.

Immature fruiting bodies of L. periphragmoides start as round or oval "eggs" that may be up to 5 cm (2.0 in) in diameter. On the underside of the egg are whitish rhizomorphs that anchor it to the substrate. The peridium is white to buff-colored on the external surface, and has a gelatinous layer inside. An egg cut in half lengthwise reveals internal layers, including a tough white outer peridium, and a thick layer of firm, translucent, gelatinous matter transversed by strands (trabeculae) of denser white tissue. The strands are anastomosing partitions, connecting with the peridium externally and with the bars of the receptaculum within. The gelatinous layer is therefore divided up into many irregular longitudinal chambers. The egg eventually ruptures as the stalk expands and breaks through, creating a volva at the base of the stipe. In maturity, the fruit bodies, are up to 15 cm (5.9 in) tall, with a latticed spherical cap (the receptaculum) atop a long yellow or reddish stipe. In general, Old World specimens tend to be yellow, while New World specimens are reddish, although exceptions have been noted in the literature. The receptaculum is typically 1.5–3.5 cm (0.6–1.4 in) in diameter and forms a red or orange lattice, or mesh. There are typically between 20 and 100 small pentagonal to hexagonal meshes in the receptaculum; the arms of the mesh have sharp ridges on the outer surface, corrugations on the sides, and are flat to weakly ridged on the inner surface. The internal surfaces of the receptaculum are covered with an olive-green spore-bearing gleba, which sometimes seeps through the mesh holes. Like most stinkhorn species, the gleba has a foul odor, comparable to rotten meat, but it is "less-offensive" than most. The smell of fresh, newly exposed gleba has been reported to be sweet, similar to amyl acetate; the foul odor forming only after it has been exposed to air for some time. The stipe is 5–15 cm (2.0–5.9 in) by 0.8–3 cm (0.3–1.2 in) thick, and is hollow and spongy. The walls of the stipe are made of an inner layer of large tubes and two or three outer layers of small tubes. Specimens may occasionally be found with fused heads on two separate stipes arising from a single volva. A variety with a white fruit body is known, Lysurus periphragmoides var. albidum (originally described as Simblum texense var. albidum by Long). It was reported growing from sandy alkaline soil in semi-arid regions of New Mexico, but has not been reported again since Long's collections in 1941. Spores are elliptical or oblong in shape, smooth, inamyloid, and have dimensions of 3.5–4.5 by 1.5–2.5 µm. The use of scanning electron microscopy has revealed that L. periphragmoides (in addition to several other Phallales species) has a hilar scar—a small indentation in the surface of the spore where it was previously connected to the basidium via the sterigma. Like many of the stinkhorns, L. periphragmoides is generally considered only edible when in its immature "egg" form.

Found in many countries around the northern hemisphere, the laughing gym grows on stumps of deciduous trees, and occasionally under conifers. This mushroom is large, firm, and colorful, and appears in small groups. Its scientific name, Gymnopilus junonius, means “naked cap sacred to Juno,” a reference to its distinctive and beautiful appearance. This mushroom is inedible and possibly toxic.