Different Colored Mushrooms

Amanitas

• The Amanita family of mushrooms is unusually colorful and photogenic. There are several Amanitas with bold, dramatic coloration, most notably Amanita muscaria, or fly agaric. These are dramatically beautiful mushrooms, with white stalks and vivid red-orange caps. The caps can be gently rounded, umbrella shapes or more spherical, depending on the mushroom. Other varieties have yellow-gold coloration, and the American Caesar's mushroom has a round cap in both gold and red. Unfortunately, there are few edible Amanitas, and the family includes several of the most lethal poisonous varieties.

Stinkhorns

• Stinkhorns are a family of mushrooms with many striking characteristics. Most grow a vertical stem with a cylindrical or phallic appearance, though other species grow into gnarled, flower-like horizontal shapes. Stinkhorns can be found in a wide range of coloration, from black cap and white stem to many shades of yellow, red, gold and brown. Stinkhorns can usually be recognized by their smell of rotting flesh. This attracts insects, which carry away spores to help the fungus reproduce.

Colorful Edibles

• The Blewit and its cultivated relative, the Blue Foot, have an unusual lavender coloration. Both the wild and cultivated versions are edible and generally described as tasty. The Beefsteak is a large, red mushroom which resembles beef when raw. It has a meaty texture when cooked but loses its color and turns black. The Lobster mushroom is red on the top and pale below, similar to cooked lobster in coloration and with a corresponding hint of shellfish in its flavor. The chanterelle, one of the choicest of all mushrooms, grows in black, gold and vivid red variations.

Odd Mushrooms

• There are many types of mushrooms and related fungi that do not fit the familiar pattern of stem and cap. Cup mushrooms, as their name suggests, form into a cup shape and can be vividly colored. Cloud ears, a relative of the "black fungus" used in Chinese cooking, grow in clusters of gelatinous yellow, gold or brown ear-shaped fungi. Trametes versicolor, commonly known in the U.S. as the Turkey Tail mushroom, grows on trees in clusters of fan-shaped, multicolored fungi with bands of rainbow colors.