PHOTOS: ‘Spooky’ glowing jack-o-lantern mushrooms light path at Parma’s West Creek Reservation

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PARMA , Ohio (WJW) — It’s a little early for Halloween, but these “spooky” mushrooms are ready to haunt your local park, adding a faint, yet enchanting glow to your evening stroll.

Local photographer Alicia Maslar recently captured these shots of jack-o-lantern mushrooms along the trail at Cleveland Metroparks ‘ West Creek Reservation in Parma:

Kelsey Rogers, a Cleveland Metroparks naturalist and fungi expert, said you can identify the fungus — proper name Omphalotus illudens — by how it grows in clusters, its pumpkin-orange color and its gills, which run down the stem.

“ O. illudens is a wood rotter, found growing in clusters at the base of rotting trees or their roots,” Rogers told FOX 8 News.

The gills on these mushrooms do glow, albeit so faintly you probably can’t see it with the naked eye, unless it’s dark and your eyes have adjusted, Rogers said.

Otherwise, you can use a camera set up for long exposure, like Maslar.

“When I spotted it in the woods, I Google Images-searched it, read that it was bioluminescent, so I came back at night to do a long exposure to capture the glow,” Maslar told FOX 8 News. “This summer, I’ve been focusing on things that glow at night like the aurora , lightning bugs and now mushrooms.”

Jack-o-lantern mushrooms are common and typically fruit in the late summer or early fall. Rogers said she’s heard of local sightings already this year, so she said she’s not surprised they can be found in the Parma park.

“And for the oft-asked question, ‘Can I eat it?’ The answer is a resounding NO! This mushroom is poisonous,” Rogers wrote. “It earns the spooky Halloween name on all fronts: dangerous to consume, glows in the dark, and is a nice pumpkin orange.”

They look somewhat similar to golden chanterelles, a “delightfully tasty” mushroom that’s great for the sauté pan, according to a 2016 entry on Ohio State University’s Buckeye Yard and Garden Online blog. But the key difference in jack-o-lanterns is their blade-like gills that can be detached from the cap — and the “serious gastric distress” that can be caused by eating them.

“It is a reminder that you really need to get a positive identification before taking a chance on nature gone wild,” the authors wrote. “Remember the mantra: There are old mushroom hunters, and bold mushroom hunters, but no old, bold mushroom hunters.”

Want to learn more about spotting mushrooms near you? You can join Rogers on a half-mile mushroom identification hike , from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 24, and from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., on Saturday, Aug. 3, at South Chagrin Reservation .

Meet at the Sulphur Springs Picnic Area in Bentleyville.

“Learn the steps to identifying mushrooms from spore prints to keys and discover how to use these skills to get involved with community science,” reads the event listing. “Perfect for those who have only encountered mushrooms on a pizza as well as for fungi fans whose ID skills have gotten rusty over winter.”

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