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omphaloid

Terms discussed: belly-button (pl. belly-buttons), omphalinoid, omphalodisc (pl. omphalodiscs), omphalos


See Also:
cap shape




Image of Xeromphalina campanella from Eugen Gramberg (1913) Pilze unserer Heimat
Xeromphalina campanella
An omphaloid mushroom is one with a central depression, giving the cap the appearance of a belly-button (the "omphalos"). This sort of "inny" belly-button has given the name to the genera Omphalotus and Omphalina (little belly-button), and various segregates from Omphalina such as Xeromphalina and Chrysomphalina. The terms can be used in a morphological sense, describing mushrooms with an umbillicate cap, or in a taxonomic sense, referring to all the mushrooms in these taxa.

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Note that the omphalos morpheme doesn't always mean an "inny" belly-button in mycology: the term omphalodisc describes the fruiting body of a lichen in the genus Umbilicaria, which has a bump in the center resembling an "outie" belly-button.

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Image of Xeromphalina campanella from Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1816 - 1817) Das System der Pilze und Schwämme
Xeromphalina campanella
That the term can be misleading is evident from the following picture from Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck's (1816 - 1817) Das System der Pilze und Schwämme: apparently Nees told his engraver that the central depression looked like a belly-button, and by golly the engraver created a mushroom with much more of a belly-button than any mushroom that actually exists.

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