I just got back from taking Alex for a walk even though it’s a bit blustery out there today. As we passed the little wooded area in front of our house it was hard to miss the large areas of bright orange on one of the cedar trees. What the heck?

At first I thought it might be mushrooms since it just appeared since our rain the other day. On closer inspection nearly all the cedar trees in that area were oozing orange goo. It looked like something from outer space! Yuck! You know me, had to grab the camera.

This tree had a different pattern of goo.

Up close and gelatinous! It’s very wet and sticky.

When I came in I googled “orange goo on cedar trees” and came up with something called quince rust. In a way I was right in thinking it was a mushroom since it is actually the fruiting body of a fungus. Here is a link to a pretty good article about it. It says it won’t permanently harm the tree, so that’s good.

Still … it’s very weird. What do you think? Would you like to have some orange goo of your own? I can scrape some off and send you some!

Ewww!  No thank you!

I know you like wild mushrooms, but I can bet you won’t be serving this up as a side with supper tonight!

Okay, Elizabeth, I’ll skip sending you some! You sure?

Bigsis, you are so right! This stuff is pretty gross.

Yucko!  But in a strange way kinda “pretty”.  Not as pretty as your guest room though.  I have never seen anything like this before.

Debra, me either! That’s why I had to get some pics of it. I guess it’s pretty common. The rain made it “bloom.”

Whoa!  It looks like someone went crazy with a pumpkin pie.  Keep us posted and let us know if it starts to ‘grow.’

Helene, it’s already drying up today when I checked on it. I guess I caught it just right!

Great photos but what a strange disease.  The article does say it can spread to other trees - would this be a problem in your woods?

Joyce, it only spreads to the cedars and a type of evergreen shrub (which I don’t think we have), so the other trees in the woods are safe from orange goo.