Armillaria sp.

[jonela]

Parasitic mushrooms are calamity itself if one looks at them from a forester's point of view. They damage the resident tree species, but create new habitats for other organisms.
The best known parasitic edible fungus is Armillaria mellea (The Honey Mushroom). Some people may not tolerate it - e.g. in Germany and France it is viewed as a poisonous mushroom. In Romania it's very apreciated as a delicacy.

Who is it?
It's a fungus which belongs to Basidiomycota Phylum, sharing the same order as champignons - Ord. Agaricales.

What does it look like?
The spore bodies have yellow to brown caps, their shape varying with the age: conical when young, then convex and finally depressed in the center. These caps are a bit sticky to touch when humid. The stem (stipe) has a ring, but never a volva. The spore print is white.

Where does it grow?
Honey Mushrooms' spore bodies grow on wood, not solitary, but tipically in small clumps.
This fungus is not fastidious. It attacks trees, shrubs, forest vines and sometimes herbaceous perennial plants which develop woody parts.

What does it do to the infected trees?
It's a destructive forest pathogen, causing the "white rot" root disease of the plants it grows on. A very smart parasite as well, since it keeps on living after killing its host! That's what most parasites will do - kill the host and die, too. But not this fungus!

Armillaria sp. has the ability of becoming saprotrophic and thriving on dead material as well as on living plants. That is why these species are long lived and resulted in the largest organisms on this planet!

The species we talk about is able to create bioluminescence (foxfire).

[jonela]

The toxine of this species is inactivated by heating. In theory I have known it since faculty, but I never wanted to prove it. Now I am 100% sure of it.

Last summer my sister called and told me she was having some symptoms: headache, nausea, vomiting, swetting and palpitations. I asked her what she's been eating the day before and she said: "I cooked some Honey Mushrooms yesterday and I tasted a small piece of a raw cap!" It was enough proof for me. These mushrooms are poisonous like my german friends say...

[Anam]

As It is form the kingdom of fungi and the fruit bodies of the fungus are the mushroom which grow on the surface of the wood.