Person holding a tumbling puffball with text reading "rating my favourite fungi textures"

I am known to like touching fungi. One of my favourite things to do when I’m out is boop and stroke and feel the fungi that I find (it’s part of IDying…). A texture adventure!

And as a lover of fungi, I have felt many, so I have made this post so that I can share my ratings of some of my favourite textures with you, dear reader. You’re very welcome.

This is not an exhaustive list, there are many fungi I would like to feel that I haven’t had a chance to yet, and many I’m sure will surprise me in future. But for now, this is it.

In no particular order:

Fingers holding a small jelly tooth fungi that looks a bit like a cat tougne. Text reads: Jelly tooth fungi, pseudohynum gelatinosum. 10/10/ soft but rough. has teeth! squidgable.

Jelly Tooth 10/10

Starting off strong here. Jelly tooth fungi (Pseudohydnum gelatinosum), also know as cat’s tougne fungi for very good reason. Usually found on rotting conifer trees it’s definitely odd.

Part of the reason I love it (apart from texture) is it’s one of the fungi that has teeth instead of gills which is just really metal! They’re also kind of transparent which I always love in a fungi.

Texture wise:

Soft but rough surface, very strokable
firm and squidgy to the touch, like a jelly sweet (but don’t eat it, it’s inedible)
a great size to put between two fingers

Which gives them a solid 10/10 top fungi!

Image of pestle puffball amongst leaf litter. Tex reads: pestle puffball/handkea excipuliformis. 8/10. velvety AND knobbly. Strange. Splits when sporing :(

2. Pestle Puffball 8/10

Pestle Puffballs (Handkea excipuliformis) hold a special place in my heart as they’re one of the first weird textured fungi I encoutered after fungi fever hit me. And I’ve been enamoured with them ever since.

I don’t tend to pick pestle puffballs because they’re often a solitary find but I will give them a little stroke. Their texture components include:

Velvety feel but also knobbly becuase of their textured surface
Firm texture, edible when young
they’re just strange, and I love that
-1 point because when they start sporing they get all soft, smelly and don’t split in a satisfying way

9/10, they hold a soft spot in my heart for introducing me to the stranger side of fungi.

image of some jelly ear mushrooms on a log text reads: jelly ear, auricularia auricula-judae. 9/10. very wigglable, squiiishy, abundant in winter, edible

3. Jelly Ear 9/10

The fungi on this list that the most people are probably familiar with. The Jelly ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) also known as the wood ear is an edible mushroom that grows year round and is a stable in soups and stews in a lot of East Asia. I have also heard of people making sweets and “weird fungi jaffacakes” out of them but I am yet to try.

They’re easy to ID and often grow on large clusters, mostly on Elder Trees and are one of the fungi I see most abundantly. The fact they grow in winter when most other fungi don’t is a huge bonus.

Very fun to play with, you can just wiggle them back and forth on a branch
grow in huge clusters on trees
great firm jelly texture
abundant and grow year round
edible

They can get a bit gross when it’s been very wet, but then they dry out and are even better for harvesting to store dry.

Hand holding two small jelly baby mushrooms. Text reads: Jelly baby, leotia lubrica. 11/10, so soft, boingable, squishy but firm, smol.

4. Jelly Baby 11/10

There’s definitely a theme here with jelly textured fungi. Jelly babies (Leotia lubrica) are different from maby other jelly fungi in that they have a cap and stipe like you’re “typical” mushrooms, but unlike typical fungi they have no gills! And I think that’s neat, they’re weird. I respect it.

There’s not consenus on their role in an eco system as to whether they’re saprotrophic (grow on dead things) or ectomycorhizal (grow with tree roots) but you’ll find them on forest floors.

They’re also quite bright yellow which is wonderful. Plus if you put one in your hang and flick the cap it’ll boing back and forth which is a lot of fun. And their name? Fits, they’re little babies, they’re jelly textured. But not edible so don’t be fooled there.

I’ll confess I didn’t even know they existed until I went on a fungi walk about 6 months ago and we found some, and my world was opened to their beauty!

Firm but jelly like texture
super soft to the touch
cap and stipe mushroom, but jelly textured and no gills/pores
yellow or orange = fun and easier to spot
really boingable and fun to play with
cute lil guys!

11/10, maybe it should be higher?

Hand holding a lumpy bracket fungi. Text reads: Lumpy bracket, trametes gibbosa. 100/10. Two textures in one, palm sized, sooo velvety

5. Lumpy Bracket 100/10

A very descriptive name for what seems like a pretty non-descript fungi. The Lumpy Bracket (Trametes gibbosa) grows mostly from the side of beech stumps and other tree stumps. Often they appear pretty green due to algae growing on them but are white underneath.

What I didn’t excpect from this fungi was it’s texture! The top is lumpy but also the smoothest velvet. I walked around on a fungi walk with MyceliArt Collective holding and just stroking this fungi. On the bottom it has maze like gills which give a different texture sensation so 2 in 1.

Note that the “downy” velvet texture is only available in young specemins so if it’s green you won’t have that treat. I also wouldn’t recomend pulling this off a tree stump just to feel, you can appreciate it’s texture without that.

super duper velvety soft when young
palm sized
will keep you engrossed for an entire fungi walk
pores on the under side offer a second texture option.

100/10 for a young specimin, less when they’re growing algea.

Image of a few clusters of beech jelly disk with text overlay. Text reads: beech jelly disk, neobulgaria pua, 8/10, very abundant. three stages of texture! wigglable. Can be gross! yuck!

6. Beech Jelly Disk 8/10

Another fungi that has a special place in my heart, the beech jelly disk (neobulgaria pura). Mainly because it was the first “werid” fungi I found and then successfully ID’d all by myself. I think it was also one of the first fungi I made a video about.

Beech Jelly Disks (as the name implies) grow on beech tress, dead ones to be precise, and you’ll often find them growing in huuuge clusters. I usually go looking for them in woods with piles of felled beech trees and can see thousands of individual fruit bodies in one place.

They have three main texture profiles: solid and squidgy when they first emmerge and get bigger, gross squishy texture that gives me a primal shudder when I touch it but I kind of want to do it again, then finally dry solid small husk.

Really cool to gently wiggle under your funger
squishy yet firm like a jelly sweet (but not edible!)
three stages of texture
grow in huge numbers often in all three stages across one tree
-1 point for the disgustingly slimy middle stage of growth

Solid 8/10 for these guys.

image of a hand holding a slimy waxcap. Text reads: slimy webcap Hygrocybe / Gliophorus irrigatus. 7/10. SO SLIMY. long slime strings. hard to hold :/

7. Slimy Wax Cap 7/10

Repping the gilled fungi as the only one on this list we have the slimy wax cap (Hygrocybe / Gliophorus irrigatus). Again another fungi I had no idea existed until I found it on a course and became enamoured, amazed, and disgusted all at once.

You’ll find him with many other wax cap species in undisturbed grassland.

Most Wax Cap fungi are generally pretty slimy if they’re freshly out and it’s damp, most wax cap fungi are often difficult to pick up because of this slimyness. As you can probably tell from its name the slimy wax cap takes this to another level. I dropped this guy several times trying to pick it out of the ground and I have never ever seen this level of slime from a cap and stipe fungi. It was forming strings (like a really cheesy pizza) between the fungi and my fingers as I moved.

Gross, but also fascinating. A feeling that left me disgusted but kind of craving more.

So so so slimy. Like nothing I’ve encountered before
kind of soft??
really unique feeling holding it
-1 point because it is really hard to pick up
-1 point because it did gross me out quite a bit and I kind of immediately wanted to put it down… before wanting to pick it back up again

7/10, really want to find again, I might give it a higher rating next time considering I’m craving that feeling again.

Image of a very bright orange lichen on a wall with a winder touching it. Text reads: mystery lichen, ????. 100/10. literally velvet. At face height. sooo strokable.

8. Mystery lichen 100/10

While not a “true” fungi, lichen are part made of fungi so I feel like this is fine as part of this list. It’s also a mystery as to the ID of this guy, I don’t know lichens very well and trying to search for this has got me… nothing so any leads are welcome!

The reason this had to be included is because I have never quite felt anything like it. I came across a wall full of this stuff when I was on a trip in Glasgow and… have never seen it again. It was the velvetiest, softest outdoor wall I have ever come across. Almost like stroking some kind of mammal but it was lichen?? wild. Mind, blown.

It was also at face height and I really regret not just rubbing my cheek along it a bit. If I ever find this lichen again I will be documenting it.

literally like velvet
one of the softest things I have ever stroked
addictive to stroke
I look for it everywhere now

100/10, simple.

And that concludes the ratings of my favourite fungi textures, I hope you have enjoyed this adventure and have a tactile adventure of your own when you’re out and about (while being respectful of the beings you are stroking of course). Are there any fungi I should touch that I’ve missed here?