This study investigated the internal and external morphological characteristics of decomposition and browning of oak sawdust medium for ground bed cultivation of Lentinula edodes. Within fifty days after L. edodes inoculation, surface hyphae on the bed browned. In 110 days, the fungal hyphae occupied and decomposed wood fibers, vessels and parenchymatous cells from the inside as white profuse hyphal mass was amorphously dissolving the saw dust particles from the outer surface. Most of the white hyphal bed surface became cleanly brown, however, some colony surface became blackened and slimy with contaminating bacteria, hyphae and spores. The brown layer was ca. 0.34 mm thick with highly dense and white hyphal mass beneath, whereas the blackened layer was ca. 1.17 mm thick with shrunken hyphae and less decomposed sawdust particles beneath. The surface hardness of the brown surface was ca. 0.73kgf/cm², soft and resilient, while that of the blackened was ca. 0.91kgf/cm², hard and nonresilient. By 150 days Lentinula edodes mushrooms fruited only on the brown surface and not on the blackened medium.