Poisonous Mushrooms That Grow on Trees: 5 to Know

The poisonous mushrooms most often found growing on trees, stumps or buried wood in North America are the funeral bell (deadly Galerina), the jack-o'-lantern and sulphur tuft. Two more are on record elsewhere: angel wings, blamed for deaths in Japan, and the tender nesting polypore, a bracket fungus behind a 1992 family poisoning in Germany. The funeral bell is the one that can kill, because it carries the same amatoxins as the death cap (Wikipedia).

Two sources that rank for this search, ForageSF and Holden Forests & Gardens, list the jack-o'-lantern under its European name, Omphalotus olearius. In eastern North America the species is Omphalotus illudens (Wikipedia); the warnings are the same.

Lists of 'tree mushrooms' often mix two different things, and the difference matters for identification.

• On wood. Mushrooms that feed on dead or living wood come out of the trunk, a stump, a fallen log or buried roots: funeral bell, jack-o'-lantern, sulphur tuft, honey fungus, chicken of the woods.
• From soil near trees. Mushrooms that partner with tree roots come up from the ground under the tree. ForageSF includes the death cap in its list of tree mushrooms; Wikipedia describes the death cap as associated with oaks, beeches, chestnuts, birches, pines, spruces and other trees, and it grows from soil. Earthballs also come up from the soil near roots (see poison puffball mushroom).

So dig down before you decide. A mushroom that seems to be 'on' a tree may be rising from soil at its base, and one in the lawn may be growing from a buried root.

• Where: decaying conifer wood, sometimes hardwood, singly or in clusters, summer to autumn (Wikipedia).
• Looks: a small brown to yellow-brown cap 1 to 6 cm across that fades as it dries, crowded brownish gills, a membranous ring that often disappears with age, and a rusty-brown spore print (Wikipedia).
• Toxin: amatoxins. Wikipedia gives the lethal dose of amatoxins as about 0.1 mg per kg of body weight and estimates that about ten fruit bodies could poison a 20 kg child. It records about ten poisonings in the 20th century; of ten cases reported between 1978 and 1995, two were fatal, in Washington state.
• Confused with: honey fungus (Armillaria mellea), Kuehneromyces mutabilis (which has scales on the stem below the ring), Flammulina velutipes (white spore print) and Psilocybe species, which may need a microscope to separate (Wikipedia).

The spore print is the practical check: honey fungus prints white (Wikipedia), the funeral bell rusty brown. Full page: funeral bell mushroom.

• Where: eastern North America on decaying stumps, buried roots or at the base of hardwood trees, June to November (Wikipedia).
• Looks: orange caps up to 15 cm wide, orange flesh, gills running down the stem, large clusters, white to cream spore print; fresh gills glow faintly green for 40 to 50 hours after picking (Wikipedia).
• Toxin: illudins S and M, which cause vomiting, cramps and diarrhoea whether eaten raw or cooked (Wikipedia).
• Confused with: chanterelles. Holden Forests & Gardens separates them by the underside: chanterelles have blunt folds that run unevenly down the stem, jack-o'-lanterns have true gills. Wikipedia adds that the jack-o'-lantern looks thicker and fleshier and tends to grow in clusters.

More on eastern jack-o'-lantern.

• Where: in clusters on dead wood, especially decaying broadleaf trees, spring to autumn (Wikipedia).
• Looks: caps 2 to 8 cm, sulphur yellow with an orange-brown centre; gills yellow at first, turning green as the dark spores develop; purple-brown spore print (Wikipedia).
• Toxin: vomiting, diarrhoea and convulsions starting 5 to 10 hours after eating (Wikipedia).
• Confused with: Hypholoma capnoides, which lacks the greenish-yellow gills and the bitter taste (Wikipedia).

More on sulphur tuft.

• Where: on conifer wood, especially hemlock (Wikipedia).
• Looks: pure white, fan- or petal-shaped caps 4 to 9 cm wide, sometimes yellowing with age, with thin, fragile flesh (Wikipedia).
• Toxin: in September and October 2004, poisonings in nine Japanese prefectures sickened 59 people and 17 died; the average age was 70, and deaths came 13 to 29 days after symptoms began. Wikipedia's account says most who died had existing organ disease, citing liver problems in one passage and kidney disorders in another. In 2009 a 65-year-old man on haemodialysis died of acute brain damage (encephalopathy) after eating it.
• Confused with: oyster mushrooms. ForageSF separates them by the oyster's thicker stem and flesh; Wikipedia notes the angel wing's flesh is thin and fragile by comparison.

• Where: a bracket on deciduous trees, especially oak, beech and birch, rarely on conifers (Wikipedia).
• Looks: fan-shaped to semicircular caps 2.5 to 12 cm across, dull brownish orange, with pale cinnamon flesh up to 3 cm thick (Wikipedia).
• Field sign: a drop of an alkaline solution turns every part of it bright violet at once (Wikipedia).
• Toxin: polyporic acid, 20 to 40% of the dry weight. In 1992 a family in Germany developed nausea, impaired movement, visual disturbance, and liver and kidney failure about 12 hours after eating it; all three passed violet urine for a time, and they recovered within a week (Wikipedia).

Two well-known tree fungi show why the tree itself is part of the identification. This is not a recommendation to eat either.

• Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus). Golden-yellow shelves 5 to 60 cm across on oak, cherry, willow and other hardwoods. Wikipedia reports gastrointestinal upset in some people, and vomiting and fever in about 10% of the population, possibly linked to related species on hemlock (Laetiporus huroniensis) or eucalyptus (L. gilbertsonii). It says the mushroom should not be eaten raw.
• Honey fungus (Armillaria mellea). Dense clusters at the base of trees it is killing with root rot, caps 3 to 15 cm, a persistent ring, white spore print. Wikipedia says it must be cooked thoroughly and that specimens growing on buckeye or hemlock can cause gastrointestinal upset. It is the mushroom the deadly funeral bell is mistaken for.

Wood-growing fungi fall into a few groups:

• Decomposers of dead wood, such as the funeral bell and sulphur tuft on stumps and logs, and the jack-o'-lantern on buried roots.
• Parasites of living trees, such as honey fungus, which causes Armillaria root rot (Wikipedia).
• Brackets and shelves with pores instead of gills, such as chicken of the woods and Hapalopilus rutilans.
• Jelly fungi, such as the bright yellow witch's butter on dead hardwood branches (A-Z Animals).

Mushrooms clustered on buried wood in a lawn are covered on clusters of mushrooms in yard.

Not by looking, smelling or tasting. ForageSF states there is no way to know definitively that a mushroom is poisonous from its look, smell or taste, and that cooking does not remove the toxins. Poison Control says that unless you are very experienced in mushroom identification, you cannot tell. What you can do is collect the features an expert needs, listed below, and avoid anything you cannot name with certainty.

• The tree. Conifer or hardwood, and which species if you know it; it separates angel wings from oysters and matters for chicken of the woods and honey fungus.
• Where exactly it attaches. Trunk, stump, fallen log, buried root, or soil at the base.
• The underside. Gills, folds, pores or teeth, and their colour.
• The stem. Ring or no ring, and any scales below it.
• A spore print. White, rusty brown and purple-brown point to different groups.

Photograph it with MushroomLens and the app suggests what it may be. If anyone has eaten a mushroom from a tree, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 (U.S.) right away, or your local emergency number.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Nothing on this page says a wild mushroom is safe to eat. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.