(c) Alison Northup, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY 4.0
Lion's Mane Mushroom
Fungi·Hericium erinaceus
Shade
Sun
High
Water
Not recorded
Drainage
Zones 6–9
Hardiness
Lion's Mane Mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) is a fungus. It grows best in shade and has high water needs.
Through the year
Dormant
Works well with
from wiki dataNo companions recorded.
WHAT IT NEEDS
Shade tolerant
Needs a lot of water
Needs not applicable soil
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Struggles in compacted soil
Adds a lot of organic matter to the soil
WHAT IT GIVES
Gives spores (reproductive output)
Gives mulch biomass (decomposition products)
HOW IT GROWS
SIZE & SPACING
Fungi
Height10–30 cm
Spacing15 cm (min 10 cm)
Root depthShallow
Width10–30 cm
Width figures are rough estimates, the most variable measurement in our data.
AI estimate · accuracy improves as growers contribute corrections.
HOW TO PROPAGATE
Propagate by spore print, tissue culture, plug spawn
Difficulty
Establishes in about 1 yr
Doesn't self-seed on its own
Where this comes from
Parsed11 Sept 2026
ConfidenceNot recorded
Photograph (c) Alison Northup, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY 4.0