Backyard trees do more than drop leaves and block the sun from your laundry line. They’re also hangouts for mushrooms. Some of these fungi are quiet cleanup crews breaking down old wood. Others are slow-motion tree assassins. And a few just camp out, looking like something from a bad sci-fi movie.
Most people don’t notice them unless their dog sniffs one or a kid yells about the “weird pancake thing” growing on the trunk. You’ll find these fungi on living trees, dead stumps, or wedged into old wounds way up the bark. Not every mushroom means your tree is toast, but some are definitely bad news.
Here are 18 of the most common ones you’ll spot growing right on the tree itself.
1. Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor)
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Turkey Tail grows in overlapping, leathery fans that look like someone glued tie-dye coasters to your tree. The colors run from brown and rust to bluish-gray with creamy white edges. It’s usually found in clusters on dead logs or weakened hardwoods. It’s technically a polypore, meaning it has tiny pores underneath instead of gills, which helps it spread spores without turning into a puffball mess.
It’s one of the most researched mushrooms in the world, especially in cancer studies. But in your yard, it’s just trying to break down dead wood in peace. If you see it on a living tree, it may indicate that the tree has some decay inside, even if it still looks healthy on the outside. Don’t ignore it.
2. Artist’s Conk (Ganoderma applanatum)
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The Artist’s Conk is like a permanent guest that carves its name on the furniture. The top is a tough, hoof-shaped shelf fungus, and the underside bruises brown when scratched, so people draw pictures or write on it. It grows on dead wood, stumps, or dying hardwoods, and it’ll hang around for years unless the tree gets removed.
You’ll find this one on oaks, maples, and beech trees, slowly digesting the heartwood. It won’t pop up randomly; if you’ve got one, the tree has internal decay. They aren’t fast growers, so if you see a big one, that tree has been silently struggling for a while.
3. Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellea)
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This one looks friendly with its yellow-brown cap and clustered gills, but it’s a total parasite. Honey mushrooms attack the roots and lower trunk of hardwood and conifer trees, sometimes showing up as a white mat under the bark or dark, shoestring-like rhizomorphs crawling under the soil.
The mushrooms themselves are usually found in clusters at the tree’s base in fall. It’s one of the most destructive tree pathogens worldwide. It even glows in the dark when it spreads underground. That’s not charming. That’s terrifying (but also cool).
4. Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus)
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This mushroom looks like it got stuck between being a coral reef and a cheese puff. It grows in bright orange and yellow shelves, usually on dead or dying oak trees. People go nuts trying to forage it because it’s edible when young, and it really does taste like chicken. No seasoning required.
If it’s growing on a living tree, that tree is in trouble. Chicken of the Woods is a heart rot fungus, and once it starts breaking down the inner wood, the structure weakens fast. It won’t stop at one season, either. Expect it to come back every year unless the tree is removed.
5. Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus)
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The name sounds like a fairy story, but the mushroom itself is more of a utility fixture. It grows in large beige shelves with brown scales that make it look like baked chicken skin. You’ll find it mostly on dead or dying hardwoods, often in spring.
It smells like watermelon rind when fresh, and you might spot it on elm, boxelder, or even sycamore trees. Unlike some fungi that only appear once the tree is fully rotted, Dryad’s Saddle shows up early in the decay process, especially in wounded or stressed trees. It doesn’t mean the tree is doomed, but it does mean something’s wrong under the bark.
6. Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)
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Reishi is the mushroom that influencers try to turn into a health elixir, but it’s also a natural wood decomposer. It grows in varnished-looking red and orange fans, usually near the base of hardwood trees. It’s especially fond of oaks and maples, where it colonizes the heartwood and slowly decays it over several years.
Unlike some mushrooms that just show up and rot, Reishi builds a full mycelial fortress inside the trunk before fruiting. If you see this one, it’s already been there a while, silently digesting the interior. It’s not the most aggressive fungus, but it’s not harmless.
7. Split Gill (Schizophyllum commune)
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This one is small, fuzzy, and weird. It grows in little white to gray clusters and opens up like tiny fans with “split” gills underneath. You’ll mostly find it on decaying branches, logs, or stumps after a good rain, and it’s one of the most widely distributed mushrooms on the planet.
It doesn’t look threatening, and it’s not killing trees outright. But its ability to grow on nearly anything wooden, including fence posts and tree wounds, means it loves any yard where dead wood gets ignored. It’s more of a cleanup crew member than a saboteur.
8. Shaggy Bracket (Inonotus hispidus)
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This mushroom looks like it’s covered in orange-brown cat fur. It grows in semi-circular shelves, usually solo, on the trunks of ash, apple, and walnut trees. It’s a summer and fall mushroom, and it oozes a dark juice when young, which dries into black crusts.
The big issue is internal decay. If you’ve got one, your tree’s structural integrity is compromised. It rots from the center outward and doesn’t show symptoms on the bark until the fruiting body appears. People often only notice it after a branch comes down in a storm.
9. False Tinder Fungus (Phellinus igniarius)
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False tinder fungus pretends to be helpful but really isn’t. It looks like a dark, hoof-shaped lump stuck to the side of a tree, usually hardwoods like alder, birch, and willow. It grows slowly but persistently, often staying for decades.
It causes white heart rot and eventually hollows out the entire core of the tree. People used to use it as fire-starting material, which is where the “tinder” part comes from. But in your yard, it’s not nostalgic. It’s a warning sign that the tree’s days are numbered.
10. Birch Polypore (Fomitopsis betulina)
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Burch polypore sticks to birch trees like it signed a lease. It’s a white, kidney-shaped bracket that turns tan as it ages. You won’t find it on maples or oaks—just birches. And if it shows up, the tree is already dead or dying.
It was famously found with Ötzi the Iceman’s body, possibly used for its antimicrobial properties. But unless you’re living in a prehistoric survival drama, all it means is that your birch tree is past saving. The fungus won’t jump to other trees, though, so it’s more of a quiet exit than a neighborhood outbreak.
11. Velvet Foot (Flammulina velutipes)
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This mushroom doesn’t care about the weather. It shows up in freezing temps when everything else goes dormant. Its caps are shiny and orange, with fuzzy dark stems that feel like velvet gloves. It grows in clusters on stumps, wounds, or dying hardwoods, especially elms and poplars.
It’s edible in its cultivated form, but the wild version looks too much like deadly Galerina species to risk picking. In your yard, if you see Velvet Foot, it means the tree is already stressed or rotting from a damaged area. It feeds off weakness like a fungal opportunist.
12. Clustered Bonnet (Mycena inclinata)
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These mushrooms roll deep. They grow in tight clusters that look like a crowd of tiny tan umbrellas jammed together on decaying hardwood stumps or buried roots. The caps are bell-shaped with a faint radial texture, and they often show up after a few days of fall rain.
Clustered Bonnets are saprotrophs, meaning they feed on dead material. They don’t infect live trees, but their appearance usually means that part of the tree is already gone, or at least on its way out. They tend to favor oaks and beeches, and they like to grow where old root systems are quietly falling apart underground.
13. Beefsteak Fungus (Fistulina hepatica)
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It looks like someone slapped a raw steak on your tree. This mushroom is thick, red, and oddly juicy. It grows at the base or lower trunk of oak and sweet chestnut trees, often on living wood, which makes it more threatening than it looks.
Beefsteak Fungus causes brown rot, which dries out the wood instead of making it soft. That kind of decay makes the trunk more brittle and prone to snapping. It’s edible for people, but not great for the tree. If you spot one, you’re looking at internal decay that’s been going on for a while.
14. Witches’ Butter (Tremella mesenterica)
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If your tree suddenly looks like it’s crying out yellow goo, that’s Witches’ Butter. This jelly fungus shows up in wet weather and clings to branches like a melted gummy bear. It’s technically parasitic, but not on the tree itself. It hijacks other fungi like a tiny fungal hacker.
It only appears where its host fungus is already at work, usually on dead wood or severely weakened branches. You won’t find it on healthy trees unless something else got there first. It’s more of a symptom than a cause, but it’s hard to miss when it shows up.
15. Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)
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These mushrooms get their name from their shape, not their seafood flavor. They grow in pale gray or tan overlapping shelves on dead or dying hardwoods, especially beech and aspen. Their gills run down the stem, and they usually smell like licorice or anise.
They’re technically edible, but their presence on a live tree should raise eyebrows. Oyster mushrooms break down lignin and cellulose in wood, which means they’re hollowing out the structure. If they show up above shoulder height, the decay might already be deep inside the trunk.
16. Carbon Cushion (Kretzschmaria deusta)
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This one doesn’t even pretend to be cute. It starts as a white patch and matures into a hard, black crust that looks like charcoal melted on the bark. It targets hardwoods like maple, beech, and linden, and it usually appears low on the trunk or near the roots.
Carbon Cushion is dangerous because it causes a type of rot that doesn’t show external symptoms right away. The wood becomes brittle, and trees can fail without warning. If you’ve got this one, call someone with a chainsaw and a helmet. This fungus doesn’t negotiate.
17. Peeling Oysterling (Crepidotus mollis)
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This mushroom looks like an oyster that got left in the sun. It’s soft, beige, and often peels around the edges. Unlike classic oyster mushrooms, it has a more rubbery feel and prefers already dead branches and logs that still have bark on them.
You’ll spot it on hardwoods like sycamore and alder after damp conditions. It doesn’t attack living trees, but its presence is a signal that your fallen limbs are overdue for cleanup. It also tends to grow horizontally out of vertical cuts, making it easy to miss unless you’re looking from the side.
18. Southern Bracket (Ganoderma zonatum)
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This one means business. It mainly shows up on palms and hardwoods in warmer climates, forming large, layered, brown-and-white shelves with a thick, woody texture. It’s often found at the base of the trunk, where it starts breaking down internal tissues long before it fruits.
Southern Bracket is linked to severe internal decay in trees that still look green and leafy on the outside. Once this one appears, there’s not much to do except monitor the tree for failure. It’s especially dangerous in storms, as trees infected with this fungus are prone to sudden collapse.
Fungi Are Not Random
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Mushrooms don’t grow on trees by coincidence. They’re always tied to decay, weakness, or past damage, even if that damage happened years ago. The mushrooms on this list don’t just pop up wherever they please. Each one has a specific taste for certain trees, conditions, and stages of rot.
That makes them extremely useful for figuring out what’s going on behind the bark. If you know what to look for, mushrooms can be the yard’s way of tattling on a tree that looks fine but isn’t. And spotting them early could give you just enough time to act before a branch or the whole tree comes down without warning.