Honey Fungus

I believe this to be honey fungus, one of several varieties of Armillaria, that lives on tree roots and eventually kills them. You would think it would be killing the hand that feeds it so to speak, but it can go on living for years on dead wood. We had a tree stump here when we moved in, this fungus grows along the roots in spite of numerous attempts to get rid of stump, roots and fungus.

The RHS says there is no known chemical to control armillaria. We obviously haven't yet been successful enough at digging out, as there is a prolific display at the moment. Pity its so destructive, it's really quite attractive.

Gee Whizz Statistic: Wiki tells us that the largest single organism of the species covers more than 3.4 square miles and is a thousand years old.

Lovely to be back home, even in the wind and rain.