Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellea)

September 22nd, 2012. As I was making my way back to the car after photographing the Appalachian Blazing Star, I stumbled on a small cluster of mushrooms. Quite unexpected and beautiful.

I couldn’t resist photographing them from different angles. Clouds were passing overhead and bathing them alternately in sunshine and shadow.

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Identification Resources:

The Ohio Mushroom Society: Armillaria mellea

Alan Cressler: Armillaria mellea

 

Related post:

- Appalachian Blazing Star (Liatris squarrulosa) and Friend

Campground – Dam Loop: Fungus Hunt

This is a regular route I've been walking with the hope of seeing some signs of spring. It was sunny but with a strong (15 – 20 mph), piercing wind from the southwest. I could walk for a while along sheltered areas and then turn a corner into blisteringly cold wind. Not many signs of spring but time to investigate several different fungi that I’d seen on previous walks from the west of the dam through the woods on the south side of the lake.

This looks like a dry rot fungus that was growing on a twig lying beside the trail along segment 3.
A parchment mushroom. This seems to be the same type that I saw near the campground on my last visit a week or so previously

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A bracket fungus. It’s a polypore. It looks like Heterobasidion annosum. There aren’t very many of these along the trails in this park. This one had grown on a fallen log on the climb up the hill from segment 3.

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This one was on a log by the trail almost back down to the dam. It had me stumped at first. It was vaguely familiar and then I figured out what it was. It’s a bleached Phyllotopsis nidulans. It has lost its salmon-orange pigmentation but still has the characteristic shape and ‘hairy’ surface. This time I was able to get a photo of the gills.
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Related posts:
- Marburg Creek Reservoir: Fort Yargo State Park
- Campground - Dam Loop: To The Daml
- Campground - Dam Loop: Dam To The Half-way Point
- Campground - Dam Loop: Half-way Point Back To The Dam
- Campground – Dam Loop: Revisited (February 20th, 2010)
- Mushroom: Phylloptopsis nidulans

Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellea)

After recent rain, I found this beautiful cluster of mushrooms on the path on the ledge by the creek just past the pond. I almost missed them. I did miss them on the way down but saw them on the return walk. They were quite well camouflaged against the carpet of fallen leaves. I think they are Armillaria mellea. The caps were tan with scales that were concentrated at the center. I didn’t disturb them to determine if they had rings. The stems of individual mushrooms nearby had a ring and were hairy below the ring.

The cluster at an oblique angle from a distance…

The cluster at an oblique angle close up…

A close-up of the cluster from directly above…

Close-up of one of the mushrooms in the cluster…
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Identification resource:
- Mushroom Expert: Armillaria mellea
- Flora and Faura of the Mid-Atlantic States: Mushrooms (Armillariella mellea)

Related post:
- Woods In The Fall