Fungus Fact Friday

Tagged: mushroom

#028: Mushroom Morphology: Boletes 6

Fungus Fact

#028: Mushroom Morphology: Boletes

The bolete morphology is one of two morphologies characterized by a hymenium (spore-bearing surface) covered with pores. Although boletes and polypores share this characteristic, the similarities end there.  In fact, they look different enough for them to be commonly referred to by to different names.  Boletes always share the following characteristics: the stipe (stalk) is central, the hymenium is on the underside of and is distinct from the pileus (cap), the pore surface easily separates from the pileus, the pore tubes are relatively long, and the flesh is fleshy to tough.  From above, boletes tend to look a lot like agarics.  However, bolete caps are often cracked or eaten away, making it possible for experienced mushroom hunters to tell boletes and agarics apart without picking them up.  Most boletes are mycorrhizal with trees, so boletes are usually found growing on the ground around specific trees.  Polypores never share all of...

#027: Mushroom Morphology: Gilled Mushrooms (“Agarics”) [Archived] 4

Archived

#027: Mushroom Morphology: Gilled Mushrooms (“Agarics”) [Archived]

Note: This is an archived post. You can find the current version of this post here. The gilled mushrooms, informally referred to as “agarics,” are the type of mushroom with which we are most familiar. The most common edible mushrooms (white/button/portabella mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and shiitake mushrooms) are all gilled mushrooms.  Amanita muscaria, the most recognizable mushroom in the world and the inspiration for Mario-style mushroom art, and the “magic mushrooms” are also gilled mushrooms.  What all of these mushrooms have in common is a hymenium (spore-bearing surface) that is separate from the sterile, upper part of the fruiting body (the cap/pileus) and that forms “gills.”  Gills (known to mycologists as “lamellae”) are plates of spore-producing tissue that form perpendicular to the pileus and radiate out from a single point.  The shape of these plates of tissue is reminiscent of fish gills, resulting in the term “gills.”  This morphology has...

#023: Tremella fuciformis, the Snow Fungus 2

Fungus Fact

#023: Tremella fuciformis, the Snow Fungus

This beautiful jelly mushroom also goes by a variety of other common names, including: silver ear fungus, white ear fungus, and white jelly fungus. The fungus fruits from decaying wood and produces white, translucent mushrooms that have a gelatinous consistency.  Its name seems to come from its white color and roughly snowball-shaped fruiting bodies.  Although, if you ask me, its name was probably also inspired by its “graceful lobes,”* which look somewhat like large, squishy points on a snowflake.  The snow fungus’s range is tropical to subtropical, but it can apparently be found in the United States at least as far north as Indiana.   Despite its name, you will not find this mushroom poking out of snow-covered branches.  The mushroom prefers to fruit in the summer and fall, so if you want to see this fungus for yourself you’ll either have to wait half a year or visit the mushroom...

#021: Pleurotus ostreatus, The Oyster Mushroom [Archived] 6

Archived

#021: Pleurotus ostreatus, The Oyster Mushroom [Archived]

Note: This is an archived post. Read the current version of this post here. The oyster mushroom is one of the few species of mushroom that you can routinely find at a grocery store. This is due to the fact that it is saprobic (it degrades dead plant material) and is easy to cultivate across a range of substrates.  P. ostreatus will decompose pretty much anything with cellulose: from logs to sawdust to straw to toilet paper.  Oyster mushrooms are often sold in grow-at-home mushroom kits, usually with a substrate like sawdust.  In nature they are usually found on logs or standing dead trees.  Occasionally you will find them growing terrestrially from buried wood.  The Oyster prefers hardwoods, but can also be found on conifers.  The name “Oyster Mushroom” refers to their shape and color, rather than taste.  The fruiting bodies are semicircular to shell-shaped or fan-shaped, with a short or...

#020: Aleurodiscus oakesii, Smooth Patch Disease of Oak [Archived] 0

Archived

#020: Aleurodiscus oakesii, Smooth Patch Disease of Oak [Archived]

Note: This is an archived post.  You can read the current version of the post here. How to use a trees to identify a mushroom (without seeing the actual mushrooms): If you are more than a casual observer of trees you have probably learned that oak trees often have smooth patches in their normally rough bark.  What you may not know is that these smooth patches are caused by the fungus Aleurodiscus oakesii.  This fungus only feeds off of the tree’s bark, so it does not cause any damage to the tree.  However, it does result in patches of bark that are more smooth than usual.  These patches are known as “smooth patch disease.”  As the fungus is not harmful to the tree, the main impact of the disease is the undesirable cosmetic effect it has on trees in peoples’  The disease is common on oaks, especially on white oaks,...

#019: Apiosporina morbosa, Black Knot of Cherry [Archived] 0

Archived

#019: Apiosporina morbosa, Black Knot of Cherry [Archived]

Note: this is an archived post.  You can view the current version of this post here. And now for something completely different: identifying trees from a long way away. If you’ve ever tried to identify deciduous trees in the winter, you know how hard it is to identify a tree based on its bark.  However, thanks to the fungus Apiosporina morbosa, identifying cherry trees in winter becomes a walk in the park.  Apiosporina morbosa is an ascomycete that parasitizes cherry and plum trees.  Commonly known as “black knot,” the fungus forms black, dry, cracked, irregular swellings on branches which grow to surround the branch.  According to Michael Kuo, these knots look like “dried cat poop on a stick.”*  Although this is not the most attractive-looking fungus, it is very helpful for identifying cherry trees from hundreds of feet away, especially in winter when the knots are not hidden by leaves.

#007: Omphalotus illudens, the Jack-O-Lantern Mushroom [Archived] 4

Archived

#007: Omphalotus illudens, the Jack-O-Lantern Mushroom [Archived]

Note: this is an archived post. You can read the current version of this post here. Fungus Fact Friday #007: Spotlight on Omphalotus illudens, the “Jack-O-Lantern mushroom”. If the spirit of Halloween were a mushroom, it would be O. illudens.  This mushroom is commonly known as the “Jack-O-Lantern mushroom” for a couple of good reasons.  First, it is bright orange, like the pumpkins that decorate doorsteps all over the United States in October.  Not only is the cap orange, but so are the gills, the stipe, and the interior.  Second, the mushroom’s gills glow in the dark, especially when the mushrooms are young and fresh.  There are stories of this glow being bright enough to use a clump of mushrooms as a torch.  Again, this is reminiscent of the jack-o-lanterns carved out for Halloween.  Furthermore, the mushroom often has a sweet smell and is poisonous.  Nothing says Halloween like something...

#005: Xylaria polymorpha, Dead Man’s Fingers [Archived] 2

Archived

#005: Xylaria polymorpha, Dead Man’s Fingers [Archived]

Note: this is an archived post. You can read the updated version here. October is Creepy Fungus Month on Fungus Fact Friday! To start this month I have chosen to highlight Xylaria polymorpha–Dead Man’s Fingers. When you look at this fungus’ fruiting bodies in the summer or fall it is easy to see how it got its common name.  The mushrooms are more or less straight, though often bent or warped.  Their exterior is black, wrinkled, and bumpy and becomes cracked with age.  The individual mushrooms often grow close together and may become fused at the bottom, forming a “hand” with several “fingers.”  X. polymorpha is a wood decomposer, but can often appear to grow from the ground when decomposing buried wood.  Thus, this mushroom often resembles a burnt, dead hand reaching out of the ground to grab unwitting passers-by and drag them down into the depths of the earth. ...

#002: Agaricus bisporus 13

Fungus Fact

#002: Agaricus bisporus

Agaricus bisporus accounts for about 90% of mushroom production in the United States, and 40% worldwide.  bisporus is the classic grocery store mushroom.  It goes by a variety of common names, including: “button mushroom,” “white mushroom,” “crimini,” and “portabella” (there are a variety of spellings for portabella).  That’s right, all of these are actually the same mushroom!  Crimini and portabella mushrooms come from a more flavorful brown strain of A. bisporus.  Portabellas are exactly the same strain as criminis but the mushrooms have been allowed to mature.  A. bisporus is commercially cultivated in large indoor facilities.  It is a secondary decomposer, so the substrate it is to be grown on needs to be composted first and then purified of the primary decomposers.  The growers then purchase “spawn” to inoculate the substrate with A. bisporus.  The spawn consists of A.bisporus mycelium growing on cereal grain.  The mycelium will grow through the...

#001: Armillaria ostoyae, the Humongous Fungus 3

Fungus Fact

#001: Armillaria ostoyae, the Humongous Fungus

Welcome to Fungus Fact Friday! To start off this exciting new series I have chosen a simple yet amazing fungus fact: the largest known living, single organism on the planet is a fungus; Armillaria ostoyae to be specific!  The Armillaria genus contains good edibles and includes species commonly known as “honey mushrooms” or “shoestring fungi.”  The second name comes from the thick, black rhizomorphs that connect various areas of the fungus together.  These rhizomorphs form under the bark of trees that the fungus attacks parasitically and extend through the soil from tree to tree.  This infection causes the trees to die back, which makes the 2,385 acre area the fungus has colonized visible from the air.  DNA tests taken from ostoyae samples all around the infected area showed that this was one individual (for the moment I have put aside the “what is an individual?” debate, a very confusing subject...