Is there are mushrooms growing at the bottom of my tree an emergency?
Within weeks. A fruiting body is the reproductive organ of a fungus that has already been eating the inside of the tree for years. By the time anything shows on the outside, decay is established in the root plate or the butt of the stem — the exact structural zone that holds the tree upright. This is the one common finding where an outwardly healthy tree can come over whole, roots and all, in an ordinary thunderstorm. It is an anchorage question, not a branch question.
What changes while you wait
Weeks to get a qualified look, not one night. Root decay does not advance on a timescale you can watch, and the tree does not become more likely to fail because it is Tuesday — it fails when saturated soil and a strong gust arrive together, which in this region means March through June storms and any stretch after several inches of rain. What changes while you wait is your information, not the tree. Move it to same-day if you also find soil cracking or a heaved mound on one side of the trunk, a lean that was not there last year, or wood you can push a screwdriver into by hand.
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