Wild cherry

No ectomycorrhiza, barren ground

In the «Key to the Fungi of Ukraine», M. Ya. Zerova notes a fundamental rule: most fruit trees do not form ectomycorrhiza (the type of symbiosis in which the fungus produces large, macroscopic fruiting bodies). Instead, the cherry forms endomycorrhiza (arbuscular) with microscopic soil fungi.

As a result, it's completely pointless to look under sweet cherry, sour cherry, apple or plum trees for:

- Porcini, lurid boletes and slippery jacks

- Chanterelles

- Truffles

- Classic mycorrhizal brittlegills

David Arora stresses in «Mushrooms Demystified» that if you find a classic forest mushroom under a cherry, its mycelium is most likely connected underground to the roots of another tree (an oak or birch, for example) growing nearby.

Parasites and saprotrophs of orchards

While the ground under a cherry holds little interest for a forager, the tree's wood itself often becomes a target for aggressive wood-decay fungi. Roger Phillips describes several species whose presence on a cherry is an alarm signal for the gardener:

1. Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus): This parasitic mushroom is a true scourge of old orchards. Its bright yellow-orange, fleshy fruiting bodies appear en masse on the trunks of living sweet and sour cherries in late spring. It causes rapid brown heart rot that kills the tree. When young, this mushroom is edible and tastes like chicken.

2. Honey fungus (Armillaria mellea): One of the most aggressive root parasites. If a cherry orchard is infected with honey fungus mycelium, the trees will start dying off en masse, and in autumn hundreds of fruiting bodies will appear around the trunks and on the stumps.

3. Shield pinkgill (Entoloma clypeatum): This edible spring mushroom isn't a classic mycorrhizal species, but it very often grows on the ground right under fruit trees (especially in the rose family — sour cherry, plum, sweet cherry, apple).