How Many Kinds Of Mushrooms Are There? | The Real Count

Scientists have named well over 14,000 mushroom-forming species, and the real total is far higher once unnamed fungi are counted.

People ask this as if there should be one neat number. There isn’t. “Mushroom” is a shape we can see, not one tidy box with a fixed edge. New species are still being named, old names get merged, and DNA work keeps shifting branches on the fungal family tree.

If you want the plain answer, use two numbers. Science has described well over 14,000 mushroom-forming species. If you zoom out to all fungi, estimates run into the millions. That gap is why the count feels slippery: mushrooms are only one visible slice of a much bigger kingdom.

How Many Kinds Of Mushrooms Are There? Known And Estimated Counts

When people say “kinds of mushrooms,” they usually mean the fruiting bodies you can spot in woods, lawns, fields, or on rotting logs. On that level, the named count sits well above 14,000 species.

That still doesn’t mean every species has a cap, stem, and gills. A mushroom can be a puffball, a bracket, a coral, a tooth fungus, a stinkhorn, a cup, or a morel. The wider fungal kingdom also holds molds, yeasts, rusts, and many forms most people would never call mushrooms. So the answer changes with the line you draw.

Why No One Number Stays Put

Three things keep the total in motion:

• New species are described each year from forests, grasslands, caves, islands, and old herbarium material.
• DNA work splits one “species” into several, or folds two names into one.
• Different writers mean different things by “mushroom,” from only classic cap-and-stem species to a wider set of visible fruiting fungi.

That last point trips people up. A chanterelle and a bracket fungus both count as mushrooms in everyday speech, yet they don’t sit side by side in one simple taxonomic box.

What Counts As A Mushroom In Plain Language

A mushroom is the spore-bearing fruiting body of certain fungi. The main body of the fungus is usually hidden as mycelium in soil, wood, or leaf litter. What you pick, photograph, or cook is only the temporary reproductive structure.

That plain-language meaning is why mushroom counts feel bigger than the supermarket aisle and smaller than the whole fungal kingdom. Most fungi never make a classic grocery-store shape, and many never make a large fruiting body at all.

Major Mushroom Forms People Usually Mean

• Gilled mushrooms: the familiar cap with radiating gills underneath.
• Boletes: a cap with pores instead of gills.
• Polypores and brackets: shelf-like fungi on wood.
• Puffballs and earthstars: round bodies that release spores from a pore or split outer skin.
• Coral and club fungi: upright branches or clubs rising from soil or wood.
• Tooth fungi: spines or teeth hang from the underside.
• Cups, morels, and saddles: common in the ascomycete side of the mushroom world.
• Stinkhorns and truffle-like fungi: odd forms with their own spore-release tricks.

Once you line them up like that, the count starts to make more sense. “Mushroom” isn’t one look. It’s a whole parade of shapes.

Group	What It Looks Like	How It Fits The Count
Gilled mushrooms	Cap, stem, and blade-like gills	The biggest bucket in field guides, with thousands of named species
Boletes	Soft cap with a pore surface	A large mushroom group, often easier to spot than to identify
Polypores	Shelves, brackets, or conks on wood	Many species are long-lived and add a big chunk to visible fungi totals
Russulas and milkcaps	Brittle flesh, often gilled	Huge named set that keeps changing with DNA work
Morels and allies	Honeycomb or folded caps	Small beside gilled mushrooms, yet packed with species splits
Puffballs and earthstars	Round or star-opening bodies	Part of the mushroom tally in most field use
Coral, club, and tooth fungi	Branches, clubs, or hanging teeth	Add many overlooked species that don’t match the classic “cap” image
Jelly, cup, and odd-form fungi	Gelatinous, cup-shaped, or strange fruiting bodies	These widen the count once you stop using the grocery-store definition

Where The Best Current Numbers Come From

The broad estimate for all fungi comes from major taxonomic work and global reviews. Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi points to a fungal kingdom that likely runs into the millions, far beyond the named share.

For the visible part people call mushrooms, the count tightens. The U.S. National Park Service explains that mushrooms are fruiting bodies, not the whole fungus, and notes that well over 14,000 mushroom-producing species have been described in science. You can read that framing in Mushrooms and Other Fungi.

One classification page from Natural Resources Canada pushes the number wider still. Its Agaricomycetes page lists more than 40,500 species in that mushroom-rich class, and says Agaricales alone holds more than 25,300 species. That does not mean every one maps neatly to a field-guide “mushroom.” It does show how fast the numbers climb when taxonomists use broader scientific groupings.

Why Field Guides And Global Lists Don’t Match

A field guide is built for recognition in one region. A taxonomic list is built to track names from papers, collections, and revisions across the world. Those jobs are different, so the totals never line up cleanly.

• A local guide may show a few hundred to a few thousand species.
• A national checklist may run into many thousands.
• A global list may track accepted names, old names, and alternate spellings.
• A DNA-led revision can reshuffle a whole genus in one paper.

So if one page says 14,000 and another points to a much bigger total, that isn’t always a contradiction. Sometimes they’re counting different things.

Question	Best Working Answer	What That Means
How many named mushroom-producing species are there?	Well over 14,000	A safe global ballpark for visible mushroom-forming fungi
How many fungi exist in total?	Likely millions	Mushrooms are one slice of a far larger kingdom
Why do some sources show bigger totals?	They count all fungi or broader scientific groupings	The label on the count matters as much as the number
Are all mushrooms gilled?	No	Pores, teeth, cups, shelves, corals, and puffballs all belong in the wider mushroom picture
Will the total stay fixed?	No	Fresh finds and taxonomic changes keep moving the number

What The Number Means When You See Mushrooms In Real Life

In day-to-day use, the count tells you one thing right away: the mushroom world is wider than most people think. The white button mushroom, shiitake, oyster, chanterelle, and morel are only a tiny sample from a huge cast.

It also tells you why common names can mislead. One common name may point to several species, and one species can carry more than one common name. Scientific names trim that mess down, yet those names can change as research moves along.

If you’re a forager, the giant count is a warning not to trust broad shortcuts like “all white mushrooms are safe” or “all boletes are edible.” If you’re a grower, it shows why only a small share of species are farmed. If you’re just curious, it explains why mushroom books never feel finished.

Regional Totals Can Feel More Real

Global numbers are useful, but local numbers feel more concrete. One state, one park, or one forest type can hold hundreds of visible species across a season. Wet years pull out species you didn’t spot last year.

• Species in one patch of woods
• Species in one county or state
• Species in one country
• Species named worldwide
• Species still unnamed

Each layer answers a different question. Mix those layers together, and the count gets muddy in a hurry.

A Clear Way To Think About The Count

If you want one sentence to carry away, use this: science has named well over 14,000 mushroom-forming species, yet the wider fungal kingdom still stretches far past what has a name.

So, how many kinds of mushrooms are there? More than any single field guide can hold, fewer than the total number of fungi on Earth, and still rising as mycologists name new species and redraw old boundaries. That’s not a dodge. That’s the honest count.