Created: 2008-01-23 13:56:48

By: Douglas Smith (douglas)

Summary: Armillaria mellea

Comment: Growth as a group like this, with white spores, we are calling Armillaria mellea. There isn’t much else that grows as a group like this with white spores, and nothing that also has a veil. (Gymnopus acervata is one that comes to mind, but doesn’t have a veil, thinner stipes, and different colors, also is fairly rare.) A. mellea is pretty common right now all over. But in Armillaria there are a number of different species that look pretty much the same, but differ by “clamp connections on the basidia”. Most people don’t look for such, but just call this A. mellea, although there is an argument to be made that what we have in the west in mostly A. ostoyea, so you could call it that too.
(I might have spelled these wrong off the top of my head…)