A September oak wood: photo diary from 27 September

In a September oak wood with some pine mixed in, in a single outing we found panther caps of every age, brittlegills in several colours, a young porcini, a miller, young parasols and slippery jacks under the pines. Panther caps were the most numerous: in barely half an hour we photographed them from the “ball” stage to the open umbrella. We also came across a pale greenish amanita that we didn't touch. Below is the photo diary of that day, find by find.

The outing was on 27 September 2026. We won't say exactly where, and it doesn't really matter: oak woods with pine like this can be found in many places, and it's the type of forest that tells you what to look for.

What kind of forest it is

A bright oak wood with pines creeping in here and there. Underfoot is a mix of fallen oak leaves, pine needles, cones and acorns, with dry grass in the clearings. Oak and pine each bring “their own” mushrooms: panther caps, brittlegills and porcini grow under oak, while slippery jacks grow under pine.

The wood was crossed by sandy tracks with straight pines on either side and an oak understorey, so “oak” and “pine” mushrooms grew side by side.

We weren't alone on our walk: a cat came with us, striding boldly through the oak wood as if it were looking for mushrooms too.

The first find — and straight away a warning

Right at the start, where oak leaves mixed with pine needles, we saw young parasols still shaped like drumsticks. We explain how to tell the parasol from the shaggy parasol in a separate article shaggy parasol and parasol mushroom.

A minute later, among the acorns and needles nearby, a smooth pale greenish-lemon cap peeped out with a scrap of veil near the edge. It's an amanita, but you can't tell which one from a single shot: this is how both the deadly poisonous death cap and the inedible false death cap can look. The death cap's cap can be almost white, yellowish or olive, while the false death cap's is usually lemon yellow, with white patches of veil.

They are told apart by the stem base and the smell. The death cap's stem sits in a large white sac-like volva, while the false death cap's sits in a bulb with a distinct rim, and the young mushroom smells of raw potato. We didn't pick or dig up the mushroom: we didn't see the stem, so we have no identification. Death cap toxin attacks the liver, the first symptoms appear only after many hours, and neither cooking nor freezing destroys it. Details are in the article death cap, the most dangerous mushroom in Ukraine.

Panther caps: from “ball” to umbrella

The panther cap is the star of the day. Its cap is brown, greyish brown or chestnut, evenly dotted with small white flakes, and in mature mushrooms the margin is finely grooved. Cap colour varies a lot, so look at everything together: white flakes, white free gills, a white stem with a ring, and at the base a bulb with one or more collar-like rolls above a narrow “gutter”.

We saw the first one from above: a brown cap with a dark centre and white patches, with a pine cone and oak leaves beside it.

Next to it grew a young one, still spherical. The cap is almost entirely covered in white flakes, and beneath it you can see the white stem and remnants of the veil. The flakes are what's left of the universal veil that wrapped the whole mushroom when it was young. Rain can wash them off, so a smooth brown cap doesn't yet mean “not a panther cap”.

Half an hour later, in a denser part of the oak wood, we came across a whole family. A young mushroom against the sun: a ball-shaped cap in small white warts, a pale stem among the oak leaves.

Another young one sat low among the acorns. This shot shows clearly how even and small the warts of the panther cap are. They're scattered over the cap almost uniformly, as if someone had sprinkled it with groats. In the fly agaric, by contrast, the cap is red, though the toxins in them are the same.

In this oak wood the panther caps weren't growing singly but scattered about.

And here's a mature mushroom from above. The cap has opened and the margin has become grooved, that is, marked with fine radial furrows, and you can see white flesh in a split.

The same mushroom from the side, as in the photo at the top of the article: a tall white stem, a broad brown cap with warts, golden oak leaves all around. That's what it looks like fully grown — striking, but poisonous.

And one more, on a cushion of moss among the acorns. This cap is paler, light brown with a dark centre, and it's a good example of how differently one species can look.

The panther cap contains the same toxins as the fly agaric, ibotenic acid and muscimol, but according to researchers it is noticeably more poisonous. Symptoms usually appear after 30–90 minutes: drowsiness and confusion alternating with agitation, dizziness, an unsteady gait. It gets confused with the blusher (whose flesh turns red where damaged). We explained how to tell them apart in the article panther cap: how to tell it from edible mushrooms.

A porcini in the oak wood

Among the amanitas we came across a young porcini. A brown cap, a thick barrel-shaped stem — a classic “little stump” you want to put straight into the basket.

The key is the stem: it is covered in a pale net. Ours had a matt, almost velvety cap, and the net runs far down the stem. We recorded it as a porcini, but a close relative also grows in oak woods, the summer bolete: it has just such a velvety cap that becomes finely cracked with age, and a net almost to the base of the stem. Both are excellent edible mushrooms. More about how porcini behave in different forests is in the article porcini in different types of forest.

Brittlegills: from pink to almost black

After the amanitas, brittlegills were the most numerous that day, in every shade. The first, still among the pine and oak, was a pinkish-lilac one with a broken cap: through the break you can see white gills. We didn't identify it to species.

Further on, among the oak leaves, stood a large brittlegill with a faded, almost white cap, with wine-red patches left in the centre and a grooved margin. The species can't be identified from a photo, so we simply call it a brittlegill.

From the side you can see how big it is and how the cap has curved up into a funnel. The stem is white and smooth, with no ring.

Underneath, crowded cream gills. Brittlegills have neither a ring nor a volva, and their flesh and gills are brittle. This sets them well apart from amanitas, although the cap colour is no clue here. We wrote about the dangerous cases in the article brittlegill lookalikes: how not to confuse them with the death cap.

Nearby, half hidden in the leaves, grew a red brittlegill with a dark, almost black centre. We identified it as the purple brittlegill: the cap is reddish purple to the edge and dark in the middle. It likes oak and pine, so it's right at home in a forest like this.

In the second shot the dark centre is clearer. The British guide First Nature considers it edible but advises cooking it thoroughly.

Further on, two matt purplish-pink caps dusted with oak leaves. Brittlegills with caps like these can belong to different species, and without the gills, stem and smell we can't tell them apart.

The caps are matt, even, the colour of ripe raspberries.

Rosy brittlegill in the hand

Towards the end of the walk we picked up a red brittlegill. The cap is deep red and matt, and the stem has a pinkish bloom. We identified it as the rosy brittlegill.

Underneath, cream gills and the white cut of the stem. The red bloom on the stem is a good clue for this species, although according to field guides it isn't always there.

And this is how the cap looks in the palm. On our species page the rosy brittlegill is marked as edible, but field guides disagree here: some consider it edible, others don't. Besides, red brittlegills are easy to confuse with the poisonous sickener. More in the article which brittlegills are poisonous.

The miller and a white stranger

In the same oak wood we found the miller: a white matt cap, gills running down the stem with a pinkish tinge, and the mushroom itself smells of fresh flour. All about it and its poisonous lookalikes is in the article the miller: a mushroom that smells of flour, and its poisonous lookalikes.

A minute later another white mushroom with a smooth cap turned up nearby. We didn't see the gills, and without them a white gilled mushroom could turn out to be a miller, the poisonous fool's funnel, or a knight mushroom. So it stayed in the forest.

Slippery jacks to finish

On the way back, where the pines grew thicker, we ended up with a handful of young slippery jacks. Their caps are chestnut and sticky, the stems yellow, with no ring. We identified them as the weeping bolete: it has tiny granules at the top of the stem, and its young pores exude milky droplets. It grows with pines, so in an oak wood look for it where the pines stand.

Field guides consider the weeping bolete edible but advise peeling the slimy skin off the cap and eating only a little at first: in some people slippery jacks cause an upset stomach. More about this species in the article weeping bolete, an early mushroom of pine-wood edges.

What a September oak wood gives you

The day's summary is simple. A bright oak wood with pine in September means, above all, brittlegills and panther caps, and with luck porcini and millers. Near the pines you'll add slippery jacks, and in sunny spots young parasols. More about what grows in such forests through the season is in the article what mushrooms grow in an oak forest, and about September as a whole in the piece which mushrooms to pick in September.

A few tips this outing confirmed for us:

• in an oak wood, a brown mushroom with white spots on the cap is a reason to stop, not to rejoice;
• don't take a pale green or lemon mushroom with scraps of membrane on the cap until you've seen the stem base, and better not take it at all;
• leave a white gilled mushroom in the forest unless you've checked its gills and smell;
• turn every mushroom over: the net, gills, ring and stem base will tell you more than the cap colour.

Wild mushrooms that go into the basket must always be cooked: Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment advises cooking every mushroom dish for at least 15 minutes. Guidelines for different species are in the cheat sheet how long to boil mushrooms. And if you feel unwell after a mushroom dish, don't wait — call an ambulance: what to do before it arrives is in the article mushroom poisoning: symptoms and first aid.