Mottled

The king of mottled mushrooms

The best-known species with this coloring, which even owes its Ukrainian name ("mottled parasol") to this feature, is the parasol mushroom (Macrolepiota procera).

M.Ya. Zerova explains how this pattern forms:

In a very young parasol, the cap looks like a drumstick and is completely covered with a dark brown, uniform skin. As the stem grows, the cap opens up like an umbrella. The dark skin on the surface cannot grow as fast, so it tears into dozens of large, angular dark scales. Beneath them the delicate white or pale cream flesh is exposed.

As a result the cap takes on its characteristic "mottled" coloring: a white background with large brown scales (especially dense in the center). It is one of the tastiest forest delicacies and one of the safest to identify.

Other mottled mushrooms

David Arora and Roger Phillips give other examples where scales create a mottled pattern:

1. Matt knight (Tricholoma imbricatum): Has a brown cap that cracks into small overlapping scales, like roof tiles.

2. Honey fungus (Armillaria mellea): From a distance it looks simply brown, but up close its cap (especially when young) is mottled — densely sprinkled with small dark fibrous scales on a honey-colored background.

3. Scaly tooth (Sarcodon imbricatus): Has a large cap densely covered with big dark brown scales that look like roof tiles (but underneath it has neither gills nor a sponge — instead, soft spines).