Unidentified Orange Fungus

[Pigeon feather]

Hi, can anyone help me ID this fungus growing in my garden, it seems to be growing around and close to my Magnolia tree, not sure if it will destroy the tree? hope not! there was a rather large pile of plaster board piled up originally in the area that has been moved recently as we are doing the house up and since then these have erupted! I have a cat and some chickens and not sure if this will be harmful to them either so good to get an id took some gill pics aswell if they help, had quite a mushroomy smell when broke, incidentally I am trying to grow oyster mushrooms and button mushrooms indoors but not having much luck, the oyster mushrooms have been planted for around 6 weeks now and only two have shown and they went brown within a couple of days before I could harvest and the buttons haven't even shown yet

[NickCantle]

That's Honey Fungus Pidge! Nooooo! The dreaded Honey Fungus! It's never a good thing You may want to research the effects of it online.

[Pigeon feather]

Oh dear! thanks Nick, just read up about it online, looks like the Magnolia is doomed then we had a field maple about 20ft away that came down last year due to fungus attacking it, this must have been why, not quite sure what to do now, do I just dig up the magnolia and destroy it since it's doomed anyway? it's still alive and has leaves attached and it's quite big around 7ft tall, beautiful each spring when it flowers I shall miss it

[healfdan]

Well as you have read its not good news to have Honey fungus Armillaria sp in the garden. Attempting to control its spread is not always a practical solution in a small garden but is worth a go. Initially remove the fruiting bodies to reduce spore spread and if space allows, and you are fit enough, cut down the tree and dig a trench around the stump removing the the soil and infected wood. The stump can either be extracted or treated with a recommended herbicide. I would not recommend planting trees on the site for some time. I would however suggest concentrating on planting the garden up with disease resistant plants. Bamboos and tall grasses can provide a similar effect as trees but will require more maintenance. Also check out Honey Fungus resitant shrubs on the internet.

[Pigeon feather]

Excellent, thank you for the advice, I have removed the fruiting bodies, what i think we will do is leave it be until it dies/falls, it won't cause any damage to anything if it does fall and then we will remove it, I will then look at planting up resistant varieties in the area