Question
There are leucocoprinus growing in all of my house plants. I noticed them in one a couple of weeks ago and now they have spread to all but one. If they are spreading that fast then they must be in the air. There have been no new plants in my house for over three years. How do I get rid of these and are they bad for health of small children?

Answer
Hi Rebecca,

Since you know the genus of the fungus, I assume you have correctly identified it.  These fungi are saprobic (feed on dead, decaying organics) and are not a threat to you or your children unless they are eaten.  Even then, the amount needed to cause serious problems would be much larger than what is commonly found in flower pots indoors.

The small mushroom that you see is only the fruiting body of a larger, more extensive fungal body below the soil.  The spores produced by one fungus would not have had sufficient time to spread to other nearby pots and grow to fruiting size within such a short period of time.  More likely is that the spores were present in each of the pots and as the fungus grew, and the environmental conditions were correct, they sent up fruiting bodies (the mushrooms) at roughly the same time.

I have always kept the fungi as part of the "landscape" of the pot, and they certainly are conversation pieces when I have guests.  Enjoy them, but if you have small children who like to put things in their mouths, simply remove the mushrooms from the pots.