What is glowing wood caused by?

Answer 1

My son found glowing wood while camping and I researched and found the following answer:

Glowing wood is caused by the growth of luminous fungi. In some cases, the film covering the wood may be invisible in the light, but will appear as a dim steady glow in the dark.

There are several luminescent fungi. Some luminous genera are Armillaria (apparently an extremely destructive fungus for trees), Omphalotus, Tricholomopsis, and Clitocybe,all in the family Tricholomataceae, and there are certainly more...

The general common name for glowing wood, for example, is foxfire. For the particular mushrooms:

Clitocybe : "Poisonous Clitocybe"

Omphalotus : "Jack O'Lantern"

Armillariella : "Honey Mushroom"

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I too have come across wood that glows. I live in Everett, Washington. Six years ago I had a large maple tree cut down in my back yard. Last summer I noticed that the stump had become rotten, to the point that some of the wood had become very soft. Some of it was even mushy. I took an axe and chopped out most of the stump and pilled the pieces off to the side. Later that night, just after dusk, I went out for the last smoke of the day. I walked over to the stump and noticed that it and the pieces were glowing. I noticed that the part of the wood that was glowing was the inside previously unexposed wood until I had chopped it up. I left it undisturbed and took a look at the wood the next night and it was no longer glowing. I had never even heard of candlewood so I was dumbfounded as to why wood would glow. I thought to myself it's got to be some kind of fungus. It's nice to know that I correctly guessed what it was. And that I'm not crazy for seeing glowing wood.