Community Corner

Large Mushrooms Sprouting on Area Lawns

This variety of wild mushroom has been spotted on lawns and is poisonous.

A fairy ring of mushrooms has formed on a farm in Millersville recently while oversized mushrooms have sprouted up on certain lawns in Severna Park.

Those pictured here are Chlorophyllum molybditesis, a common fruiter in warmer times of the year in grass, said Dr. Drew Minnis of the Maryland Department of Agriculture. It is poisonous, he wrote in an email to Patch.

As for the fairy ring, according to www.mushroomexpert.com: "Understanding fairy rings requires an understanding of how mushrooms grow. Like apples on an apple tree, the 'mushrooms' we see are only the reproductive fruit bodies of the 'true' organism, which is called a mycelium. The mycelium grows underground; it is a mass of elongated, hungry cells that feed on nutrients, pushing and growing through the substrate as long as there is food available."

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Each year the ring gets a little larger, said Minnis.

Do you have a fairy ring in your yard?

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