Michigan Forests Now Host Invasive Golden Oyster Mushrooms

Michigan is no stranger to invasive species, and there's been a new one popping up recently in forests in southern Lower Michigan.

Get our free mobile app

While no invasive species are ever good for Michigan's natural resources, this one could, potentially, have much further-reaching implications.

Golden Oyster Mushrooms in Michigan

The Michigan DNR says that they are now finding golden oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus citrinopileatus) in forests around the southern Lower Peninsula. 

These mushrooms gained popularity after grow-at-home kits for them became available over 20 years ago. Since then, food bloggers, chefs, and content creators have been using the mushrooms in all sorts of things - inspiring home chefs to experiment with them as well.

READ MORE: Michigan Was Never Meant to Have Earthworms

And that's all well and good except for the fact that those mushrooms have now made their way out of people's kitchens and into the forests of Michigan. It's unclear how this happened - with Aishwarya Veerabahu, a graduate student in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, saying in a release,

No one knows exactly how golden oyster mushrooms escaped into the wild, whether from a grow kit, a commercial mushroom farm or outdoor logs inoculated with golden oysters – a home-cultivation technique.

Why Golden Oyster Mushrooms Pose a Threat in Michigan

Cooking with and eating the mushrooms isn't the problem; it's what they can do to Michigan's ecosystem that's the issue.

Essentially, these mushrooms can stunt or even stop the growth of other mushrooms and fungi. That includes the ones that are used in making medications like penicillin.

What to Do if You Find Golden Oyster Mushrooms in Michigan

As they say at the airport, "If you see something, say something."

If you stumble across the mushrooms in the wild, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources asks that you record where you found them via iNaturalist.

The mushrooms are described as being "bright yellow to golden brown" and generally grow in clusters on fallen logs.