ST. LOUIS — Hikers out among Missouri’s trees will soon begin to notice an orange goo encroaching on trunks and even dripping from branches, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.
Conservationists said the goo is actually a fungus called cedar-apple rust. The fungus uses multiple plants in Missouri as a host, including juniper trees, usually the eastern red cedar in Missouri, in addition to trees and shrubs in the rose family, like apple and crabapple trees.
The inedible fungus looks like hard, brown, abnormal growth on cedar trees until a warm spring rain hits, the department said. Once they’re moisturized, the growth explodes into bright orange, gelatinous, and tentacle-shaped goo covered in fungal spores. That warm rain is forecast for the St. Louis region this week…