Attack of the 40' Yellow Mushrooms!

[jrodpad]

Ok, so it's not 40 feet... I just noticed now that there's nothing in the picture to give a sense of scope. But these durned things grow so blindingly fast that if I went away for a few days it might just reach 40 feet.

Anyway, so these things started out on the other side of the house in the soil of a potted cactus. They would from time to time pop up and they're really hard to miss because they're dayglow yellow and when they're small (1/4 in or so), they look like tiny yellow ... (err) .... male body parts. I would scrape them away and didn't really pay much mind when a new one would appear. Then I discovered physan 20 and I never saw the little yellow vienershrooms again. Until....

I noticed a tiny one poking out (no pun intended) from below the ground cover folliage in a terrarium that I have in my living room. Couldn't have been more than 1/4". No joke, by the end of the day it was 5 inches long and the cap was 1 inch or so across! I wish the masdie that I have in there would grow so well (that'll be another post). It made me consider giving up growing orchids and getting into the shroom business.

I mixed up a fresh batch of the physan-two-zero and gave the whole terrarium a good soaking - ground cover, soil, potting mix, glass, the works. No dice. Every couple of days I have a giant mutant shroom popping up. Follow up soakings of the old phy 20 have proven just as ineffective.

So - what the heck are these things? What's it growing on? The terrarium is warm and humid, but bright and sunny - don't shrooms grow in the dark? How do I keep these mutant fungi at bay? HELP!

(by the way, so hard not to go blue with this post - I must have deleted 50 off-color comments while typing this one out. Yeah, I'm a child)

Thanks!

- J

[Izzie]

Can't help with identifying or the cause...but Ray apparently has had success with using cinnamon to get rid of them, as mentioned on his Home Remedies page: First Rays' Home Remedies

[RobS]

Mushrooms are the fruits of fungi. The fungus is probably in the soil of your terrarium and cactus and likes it there. The only reall solution would be to repot.

[Drosha]

Hi
not sure if it is of any help, but we get a white version of those mushrooms associated with termite mounds. during the rainy season hundreds of those guys spawn around the foundations of the house (its ok, the termites in the area aren't the house eating kind).
My point is, maybe there is an insect carrying around the spores from pot to pot, like ants.

[Swamper]

Are you sure you're not accidentally giving them viagra.

[UKCat]

I hate to say it and I know its annoying the heck out of you and I know I would hate it if it happened to me but .... I think they are pretty :lol;

Try the cinnamon, it does work well with this kind of thing.

[camille1585]

That mushroom is probably Lepiota lutea, commonly called the flowerpot parasol. It is completely harmless for the plants and is saprophytic (feeds on decaying organic matter). You probably carried the spores around on your hands and clothes when tending all the plants, and they got established in the terrarium, which happened to be a great place for them!

Spraying cinnamon will not do anything except kill the visible mushrooms. Most fungicides will do nothing. The soil is probably fully colonized with the mycelium, so they'll just keep popping up again and again. The only course of action if you really want to get rid of them is to change the soil and disinfect the terrarium. I understand that it might be tough to do if you have a planted terrarium. Or you simply put up with them.

[Ray]

Camille,

You might very well be correct about the cinnamon not killing the mycelium (do you know that for a fact?), but I have used it with 100% success to get rid of a variety of fungi, ranging from Tinea pedis (athlete's foot) to slime molds, and they have not subsequently returned.

[camille1585]

Ray, the reason I say this is not because the cinnamon may be inneffective against the mycelium, but because the mycelium is simply too inaccessible. You would need to drench all of the soil with whatever treatment you use to get to it all.
You will certainly kill the above ground mushrooms with the cinnamon, but nothing will keep them from growing back.

[Oscarman]

Great title for your post! It grabbed my attention right away. Sorry no solutions here....could you cook it?