Mushrooms on my private area!

This may sound a little bit like a medical question but I have some mushrooms on my private area. :eek:

They appeared over night and the private deck area is my 3 year olds favourite place to play. Do any of you 'wildthing' experts know what sort they are and if I can leave them alone and be confident they are safe.

 

Identification of fungi over the web is fraught with difficulties as there are so many look-a-likes. Sometimes you need to section a mushroom, do spore prints or even look at the spores through a microscope for positive ID.

It looks like some sort of fairy ring and my incliniation would be to remove the fuit bodies if there is any danger a kid could pop one in their mouth. I would also dose the area with a solution of Amillatox just to be on the safe side and keep a wary eye for recurrence.

Most fungii are harmless, some are delicious, some cause tummy upset, some can give you a 'trip' (eg magic mushrooms) and some are deadly. Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) or Destroying Angel or Death Angel (Amanita ocreata) are not given their common names for fun.

It's a specialist subject and my advice would be don't take risks.

[ 20. June 2006, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: frogesque ]

 

Some links:

Wikipedia: Death Cap

MushroomExpert: Destroying Angel

Arkive: Fly agaric

 

Thanks frogesque, I've had some similar before caused by poorly drained soil, and I think the spores came from the mini bark I mixed into the soil, but these appeared over night after I watered that area. I will remove them I think wearing some gloves. The water must have washed the spores into the cracks in the oak stumps.

 

Re-looked at your pics and can now see they are growing on the wood or old roots. The fungi hyphae (sort of roots) will have been feeding on the decaying wood for a while and it's the watering that will have stimulated them into making fruit bodies (toadstools or mushrooms). It's normally damp and humid conditions that promte fruiting. Fungi spores are everwhere and they are very opportunistic. Generally if you provide the right conditions (food source, moisture etc.) then they'll turn up sooner or later.

I do have to stress I'm no expert on the subject though.

 

Sounds likely frogesque, thankyou.

 

I had some mushrooms once grew on my muck heap. I made a fantastic cream and garlic sauce, fried them in butter and served with pasta and fresh chopped parsley - yummy yummy..............

Well eerrrrrr

I tucked into mine real quick, but Martin cut his mushroom open to descover it full of maggots AND still alive - oh I still wriggle at the thought!

 

I'd not like to hazard a guess as to what those are BM - it's likely they are harmless and may even be very palatable, but without an expert micologist at hand, it's a bit of a gamble. I tend to thrown a couple of bagfulls of rotted manure around my banana clumps in most years, which seems to give them the oomph they need on my shallow rocky soil. A bonus is the big crop of 'horse mushrooms', which springs up in late summer and early autumn. Very tasty!

 

Cheers everyone, not been out to check on them since yesteday morning. If it stops raining I will go and have a look and dispose of them. :D