postman215
New member
These are growing on my basement rug. What are they should I be worried. PM me with the answer please, thanks. http://myspace-436.vo.llnwd.net/00776/63/42/776832436_m.jpg]CLICK HERE CLICK HERE
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Help! What Is It? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter postman215
- Start date
Katy Penland
Well-known member
Hi, Postman! I see this is your first post, so a warm welcome to you from all of us on staff here at BirdForum!
Obviously a mushroom/fungus of some kind, which means you've got a very serious water problem under your floor. Sounds like the moisture barrier under your foundation has been breached.
Yes, you should be worried as this can lead to structural damage as well as potential health problems (mold).
Obviously a mushroom/fungus of some kind, which means you've got a very serious water problem under your floor. Sounds like the moisture barrier under your foundation has been breached.
Yes, you should be worried as this can lead to structural damage as well as potential health problems (mold).
Any chance of a larger photo? I can almost make out something like a cup fungus, presumably a Peziza species. P. cerea grows on mortar, and is listed as being commonly found in cellars. I have seen it growing between paving stones in a garden. Is it an indicaton of structural problems due to damp? To be honest I don't know, and it could be that the residual damp in a healthy cellar is enough to encourage this fungus.
The avice to fry the fungus in butter is dangerous: butter is high in cholesterol.
Leif
The avice to fry the fungus in butter is dangerous: butter is high in cholesterol.
Leif
Silver
Registered Sane
Leif said:
Yes, indeed it is Peziza cerea as Leif suggests. It is not unusual in such situations and it is the fungus most commonly brought in for identification at work. I even based a short exam question around it this year.
Yes, it shows the plaster or mortar must be pretty damp and continuously so. Situations I have seen it include on a pile of damp builders' sand by a woodland path; on the brickwork under the derelict pier on Brighton sea-front, coming from the mortar low on an outside wall in the centre of Lerwick, Shetland, and on the plaster under a friend's bathroom sink in the aftermath of the time that workers renovating the roof of her block of flats removed the slating on a Friday, tacked down some thin polythene sheeting and then left for the weekend - a weekend when high winds and heavy rain were correctly forcast. (She had a fine growth of the small, orange cup-fungus, Pyronema domesticum, on the plaster too, though her appreciation of this was somewhat limited.)
btw, jokes aside, Peziza cerea is not considered edible.
Alan
