This fungus spends its entire life inside Tall Fescue, a common livestock feed grass. While it is beneficial to the plant, it makes animals that feed on the grass sick. In the United States, the fungus costs the beef industry from $600 million to $1 billion or more every year.
This edible, toothed mushroom looks like a frozen waterfall sprouting out of the side of a tree. Aside from its unique appearance, the mushroom is notable for its putative ability to help the nervous system regenerate.
Witches might not be real, but witches’ brooms certainly are – and they’re destroying chocolate! Yes, Halloween’s favorite treat (chocolate) is suffering at the hands of a disease with a Halloween-themed name: Witches’ Broom Disease. Witches’ brooms are actually fairly common and occur on many different plants. In chocolate trees (Cacao trees, Theobroma cacao, whose genus name literally means “food of the gods”), witches’ brooms are caused by the fungal pathogen Moniliophthora perniciosa and have an enormous economic impact on chocolate production in Central and South America.
On September 30, 1882, Emily Dickinson wrote the following in a letter to Mabel Loomis Todd: That without suspecting it you should send me the preferred flower of life, seems almost supernatural, and the sweet glee that I felt at meeting it, I could confide to none—I still cherish the clutch with which I bore it from the ground when a wondering child, an unearthly booty, and maturity only enhances mystery, never decreases it— The previous week, she had received a gift from Mabel Todd: a painting of Monotropa uniflora. These ethereal plants happened to rank among Emily Dickinson’s favorite wildflowers, thus prompting the response above. In the same letter, Dickinson gave Todd the poem “A Route of Evanescence” in return for the painting with a note explaining, “I cannot make an Indian Pipe but please accept a Humming Bird.” Many people have likened the Ghost Plant to the reclusive...
“Hair Growing on Wood – Believe it or Not” proclaimed one of the exhibits at the Ripley’s Believe it or Not pavilion during the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. The curious organism on display was Stemonitis fusca, which belongs to a group of organisms commonly known as “Chocolate Tube Slime Molds” or “Pipe Cleaner Slime Molds.” However, thanks to its moment of fame 82 years ago, “Tree Hair” is also an acceptable common name for these species.
This lichen can be found hanging from trees in conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest (Oregon to Alaska). Alectoria sarmentosa is light green, highly branched, and drapes over tree branches like tinsel. This resembles bushy, green hair such as that a witch might have.
If you need a mushroom centerpiece for your Halloween party, then this is it. This large mushroom has a bulbous, bright red, reticulated base that easily invokes demonic fires (hence its common and scientific names). As a bonus, Satan’s Bolete has a fetid odor – quite fitting, don’t you think? Unfortunately, this mushroom is rather rare.
Noting what decorations a bolete has on its stem can be very helpful in identifying that bolete. One type of decoration you may find on a bolete’s stipe is reticulation. Reticulation is a net-like pattern of ridges that extend partially or all the way down the stipe. These ridges are actually an extension of the pore surface, much like decurrent gills in agarics. The reticulum does produce spores, but is not as efficient at discharging spores because it is oriented parallel to the ground. Heimioporus betula is hands-down the best example of reticulation in any bolote.
The banana that you know and love may soon be a thing of the past. I know, you probably think that I’m exaggerating the threat to this ubiquitous crop, but the possibility of bananas disappearing from grocery shelves forever is very real. In fact, it nearly happened once before. Here is a brief history of the modern banana: in the 1950’s, bananas were wiped out by a disease called Panama Disease. To save the crop, a resistant variety was discovered. Today, Panama Disease has evolved to attack the resistant variety, thus threatening to decimate banana production for a second time. This time, however, there is not a fallback option.
This is without a doubt the strangest-looking puffball-like mushroom in North America. It starts out looking like the inside of an oddly-colored egg and ends up resembling a little, red balloon glued to the top of a tiny termite mound. This description really doesn’t do the mushroom justice, so please do an image search for “Calostoma cinnabarinum” to see what the mushroom actually looks like.
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