Spotted: Honey mushrooms around Menlo Park
We’d spotted these mushrooms (right) on a walk near Oak Knoll school and then heard from InMenlo reader Chris MacIntosh who emailed:
“These large mushrooms (pictured top) caught my eye along Alma by the library. Several trees must have been removed as they grow on dead or dying wood.
“They are Honey mushroom, armilleria mellea. They are pretty easy to tell: brown; growing in a cluster; on tree roots or at base of a tree; white spores (the whitish dust falling on to lower caps); a ring around the upper part of the stem.
“They are pretty common. Friends send me emails saying ‘what are these mushrooms in my lawn’ and I have to tell them that these are likely growing on tree roots and that the tree is dying.”
Top photo by Chris MacIntosh; vertical photo by Linda Hubbard (c) 2023
dana hendrickson December 28, 2023 at 10:04 am
According to the University of California, this mushroom – also known as “oak root fungus” – is a disease that attacks and kills many types of trees and wood plants. And it’s extremely difficult to stop once it infects areas. https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74171.html
The heavy rains last year produced water-logged soil, a condition that benefits this fungus.