Mushrooms on trees indicate decay (+video)

They look like mushrooms or seashells or Venus flytraps, about to open their lips and swallow … something.

The growths are showing up on the trunks and branches of some trees in the Wichita area, readily apparent since the leaves have fallen off to expose bare tree trunks, Sedgwick County extension agent Matthew McKernan says.

When Larry Walker saw the growths on the trunk of a globe willow in his backyard in southeast Wichita last fall, he had already been planning to take the tree out.

“We planted it about 16 years ago, and the last few years we’ve noticed it’s gotten really messy. We’ve had large branches break off,” Walker said.

There’s a good reason for that. The growths on the side of his tree — diagnosed by McKernan as a type of mushroom called a conk — attach to decaying wood, a sign that a tree may be dying.

“Since we are oftentimes not able to see into the center of the tree with our naked eyes,” McKernan wrote in an e-mail to Walker, “these mushrooms are the outward signs that the center of the tree is decaying. … These mushrooms often indicate the tree is at the end of its lifespan and may need to be removed.”

McKernan said several other people have dropped by the Extension Center with questions about conks, sometimes with affected branches in hand.

Walker’s tree had big conks, one of them about 10 inches across and 3 inches tall. Some of the conks at McKernan’s office look more like little stacked mushrooms.

No matter how they show up, they are a sign to have a tree checked out by a certified arborist, McKernan said. Decay, which cannot be reversed, weakens the strength of the trunk, branches and roots of a tree, posing a safety hazard. The tree or pieces of it could come down on people, houses or other property, especially in a wind or ice storm.

A certified arborist is able to drill into the trunk to evaluate how much of the tree is good wood and how much is decaying, McKernan said, and to determine what kind of a risk it poses.

“I decided to take the tree down,” Walker said, and the work has already started, revealing even more dieback in the canopy than he had been able to see from the ground.

This story was originally published January 30, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Mushrooms on trees indicate decay (+video)."