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Honey mushrooms: golden clusters at the base of trees in fall

August to October

Honey mushrooms are dense clusters of golden-tan to brown caps that sprout from the base of tree trunks, stumps, and dying trees from late summer into fall. They are the visible fruiting stage of Armillaria, a fungus that spreads underground through black, shoestring-like strands called rhizomorphs.

Why this time of year

UMass Extension notes that Armillaria mushrooms may appear from late August through October, but in southern New England they are most abundant during a short period in late September and early October, so watch for them from late August, with the best odds in late September and early October.

How to notice it

  1. Check the base of tree trunks, stumps, or any recently killed tree in your yard or a nearby wooded area for a crowded cluster of mushroom caps sharing one base.
  2. Look for golden-tan to brown caps, often with a ring on the white stem.
  3. If you find a stump or dead tree with loose bark nearby, gently peel back a piece to look for black, shoestring-like rhizomorphs running just underneath.
  4. Leave the mushrooms and bark in place after looking so the fungus and the wood it is breaking down are undisturbed.

Try this with kids: Can you find the spot where a whole crowd of mushrooms is growing out of the same base at the bottom of a tree? If there is a loose piece of bark on a nearby stump, peek underneath, can you spot the fungus's black shoelace strings?

rhizomorphs: black, root-like strands of fungal tissue that let the fungus spread underground from root to root

Safety

  • Never eat wild mushrooms. Honey mushrooms have made people sick even when cooked, and they can be confused with toxic look-alikes, including Galerina.

Sources

  • umass.eduEstablishes fruiting season (late August through October, most abundant in a short window of late September to early October in southern New England), fruiting location (base of stumps or recently killed trees), cap appearance (golden tan to brown, dense clusters, ring on the white stem), and rhizomorph description (black, melanized, root-like fungal strands that develop under bark and grow through soil to nearby roots).
  • dnr.wisconsin.govConfirms fall clustering of honey mushrooms around the base of dead or dying trees and stumps, and describes dark shoestring rhizomorphs on roots plus white fungal mats found under bark.
  • pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govWisconsin Poison Center case series (Am J Emerg Med 2026), abstract read via NCBI E-utilities because the PubMed page served a cookie wall: suspected Armillaria ingestions caused illness 'despite reported cooking'; Galerina is named as a differential diagnosis; the documented misidentification was Gymnopilus.

Checked against these sources on September 22, 2026.

In the guide for August, September, October

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