RE: Fungus

It a palnt is dying of (or has just died of) Armillaria, if you take a sharp knife and scrape away the bark at the ground level, you will see
teh mycelium just underneath the bark.  You will also notice the distictinve mushroom odor of Armillaria.  

If you really want a definitive answer, since you live in the bay area, on the first Saturday of next month (assuming it is not cancelled because of proximity to New Years), take a fresh dying stem, including the part that comes out of the ground (any any mushrooms you think might be involved (unlikely, unless they are growing ON the decaying shrub) to U.C Botanic Garden in Berkeley, and have it examined at the plant clinic.

Armillaria lives in decaying roots of dead susceptible plants.  It is generally found in the bay area where oak trees live or lived.  It can remain in buried dead oak roots for 70 years.  So, if there used to be an infected oak tree there, and the roots of susceptible plants grow up to the decaying root - Presto.  They catch it and die.  I would not think that Euphorbia or Plargonium would be susceptible to Armillaria.

Your photo does not look like armillaria to me.  Do a google image search on  armillaria and you'ss see a number of photos that don't look like this.

I just noticed you were talking about death in the summer.  If it was a fungus, was more likely Phythophthora (which would also have no relation to the mushrooms you are finding).

Richard Starkeson
San Francisco

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On 12/19/2003 at 5:20 PM Jennifer Dungan wrote:

>Hi,
>
>This past summer (Bay area, California) my front yard
>suburban garden had an unexpected amount of plant
>death.  I lost
>
>Ceanothus hearstiorum
>Osteomeles schwerinae
>Pelargonium sidoides
>Euphorbia characias 'Portugese Velvet'
>Cercis reniformis 'Oklahoma'
>a Helianthamum, an Erodium and a few others
>
>and this is in a small garden!  After a few showed
>dead branches and then died quickly, I began to
>suspect something systemic like a fungus.  This
>past week after rain, mushrooms emerged.
>
>
>Are these possibly Armillaria?
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