Sam's Corner
Fourth Quarter of 2003
Thank you wonderful MMA people - you have been so good to me - cord of wood, film, special wagon, and special friendship!
NEMF Ristich Foray collections were bounteous this year - 375 species, 25 of which are new to the NEMF foray list!! And did they feed us well in New York - wow!
Topics
Yellow mushrooms in a cactus pot!!
Mycological wonderments at Shaker Village
The Wasp, the Polypore, and the Other Wasp
Lewiston Foray
Yellow mushrooms in a cactus pot!!
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Dr. Delahunt called to tell me that the child had apparently eaten a yellow mushroom from a flowerpot containing a cactus. I asked him to deliver the mushroom since his description was vague. The father and the policeman delivered the entity. Actually, there were 14 yellow unopened gilled mushrooms in a tight clump!
Last year Linda Clarke found a yellow mushroom in a flowerpot called Lepiota lutea (= Leucocoprinus birnbaumii), which is a fuzzy entity with an annulus. Read about the story in Sam’s Corner. This cluster of mushrooms was smooth. I put the cluster in moist paper toweling, placed it in a bowl and covered it with a dish. The next morning the mushrooms had grown 1", had a fuzzy cap and stem resembling Linda’s Lepiota lutea.
About 25 years ago I found about 25 of these growing in a potting drum of steamed soil. For the next 3 years it appeared in this drum. This species thrives in potted soil in many greenhouses. What magic we have wrought!
Mycological wonderments at Shaker Village = Quarry Road
Mycological wonderments at Shaker Village = Quarry Road
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Eighteen people came to the foray – 4 were new participants. Despite the Sahara weather, we found (or people brought) the following unusual fungi.
Slime Molds – Physarum viride, Lycogala flavofuscum
Polypores – Hapalopilus nidulans, Ganoderma tsugae
Gilled – Phylloporus rhodoxanthus, Hygrophorus chloraphanous, Marasmius rotula, Lactarius corrugis, Mycena leiana
Ascomycetes – Microglossum rufum, Hypoxylon fragiforme, Ustulina deusta
Imperfects (Deuteromycetes) – Hormomyces callorioides, Chromelosporium caerulescens
Strange Basidiomycetes – Syzygospora mycetophila
Toothed Fungi – Sarcodon imbricatum
Let’s begin with the slime molds. Lycogala flavofuscum is rare and it has a strange growth habit. It is always found growing 3-5 feet off the ground and usually on birch. It can be mistaken for another slime mold, i.e., Reticularia. Cheryl found it in a birch. Physarum viride is a tiny globose, stipitate species that has a "gold color" peridium.
The polypores - Hapalopilus nidulans is unusual for several reasons. (1) It produces an intense blue dye for the dyers. (2) When you put KOH (potassium hydroxide) on the flesh, a blue reaction is produced. We found many Ganoderma tsugae in all stages of development from the young white to the beautiful varnished, mature specimens. Stamets cultures it and sells the small portions as a therapeutic tea.
The gilled species - Look up the "gilled bolete", Phylloporus rhodoxanthus. It has a red cap and beautiful yellow decurrent gills. It will also produce a "poroid form". I have a photograph of this phenomenon!! The parachute Marasmius rotula has a fascinating design. The gills are attached to a ring, making the gills free. Check it in the Audubon guide. Seek the brilliant orange Mycena leiana with cystidia on the edge of its gills. Compare Hygrophorus chloraphanus with flavescens and tell me how these 2 look-alikes differ.
Ascomycetes – The yellow earth tongue, Microglossum rufum, resembles a yellow Geoglossum. It has long, sausage-like spores! Hypoxylon and Ustulina are interesting. You can see 3 color changes in Hypoxylon fragiforme that represent the 4 maturation changes in the same fungus – 1) white are immature blobs; 2) gray is the imperfect stage that produces conidia; 3) red is the early form of the sexual (perfect) stage with perithecia and asci; 4) the mature sexual stage ejecting black spores. It is most common on beech.
Imperfect Fungi (Deuteromycetes) – I think the 2 most fascinating fungi were the Hormomyces, which resembles a reddish jelly. Under the microscope you see round spores in long, chain-like beads. It appears after a prolonged rain and lasts only for a few days on decayed wood. Its perfect (= teleomorph) stage has not been found.
The most dramatic entity was the fast-transforming, slime mold-like Chromelosporium caerulescens. Let me describe the changes it has in 2 days. (1) It begins looking like a glistening bluish crystalline Christmas tree. (2) Soon the white spores form on the "Christmas tree." (3) In about 4-6 hours the white spores turn light blue. (4) As they mature the color becomes tan. Another species, ostracoderma, transforms into a yellowish Peziza. It is found in greenhouses on steamed soil.
Strange Basidiomycetes – Syzygospora mycetophila. It looked like a tan jelly on the gills of Collybia dryophila. This has had many name changes. Krieger named it Tremella mycetophila. Then it became Christiansenia. Now it is Syzygospora. Gary and Sheldon found 20 specimens at Greenlawn Cemetery that were covered with these tan jelly tumors on all part of the mushroom. I have good photographs.
Tooth Fungi (Hydnums) – Someone brought 10 toothed fungi with a stem, brown scaly cap, and gray teeth in the genus Sarcodon. Spores are ‘bumpy’ (tuberculate). Flesh and stem are very brittle. Its look-alike, which is very leathery, belongs in the genus Hydnellum. There are similar species in genera like Bankera and Phellodon with white spores. Read about these in the books ----- and make a chart with other genera of tooth fungi.
The Remarkable Story of the Wood Fungus Cerrena (Daedalea) unicolor, the Horntail Wasp Tremex Columba, and the Ichneumonid wasp Megarhyssa
The Remarkable Story of
the Wood Fungus Cerrena (Daedalea) unicolor,
the Horntail Wasp Tremex Columba,
and the Ichneumonid wasp Megarhyssa
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The drama begins as follows: the female horntail wood wasp, Tremex columba, drills eggs into a species of deciduous wood, usually beech. The eggs pick up spores of the wood fungus Cerrena unicolor. These spores are stored in her ovipositor. The mycelium from the germinating spores contains an extra-cellular enzyme that helps break down the cellulose on which the larvae feed. There is also evidence that the saliva of the larvae also helps in the pre-digestion.
The spores are stored in larval pouches called mycetangia and are squeezed out during the larval period. Since these spores called oidea are asexual they proliferated rapidly and produce an abundance of mycelium. When the larvae pupate the spores become part of the pupa. When the female wasp emerges, the spores by some magic become part of the egg sac (ovipositor). So we see an amazing symbiotic relationship between an insect and a basidiomycete - white rot fungus.
How, how does the ichneumonid parasitic wasp Megarhyssa become involved?
The $128 question is how does the female wasp find the horntail larvae tunneling deep in the dead wood" The fungus, Cerrena unicolor, forms conspicuous sporocarps that resemble wooly Polyporus versicolor (turkeytail) on the dead wood. The fungus produces a pheromone that lures the female wasp to the area. The female begins drilling into the wood with its remarkable flexible 4 - 6 inch needle-thin ovipositor. I have amazing photographs of the drilling operation you can view.
When the Megarhyssa larvae hatch they parasitize the horntail larvae in the tunnels. Fantastic! Remarkable!
P.S. I have photographed the drama of the emergence and drilling of the wasp 5 times. Each time I have seen 5 - 6 females and 40 - 50 males. Males do a circle mating dance that is phenomenal. Males live 5 - 10 days and females 15 - 20 days.
Lewiston Foray
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An Amanita (caesarea) jacksonii extravaganza!!
The people who came found 85 species and some unusual finds, viz, gigantic Caesar’s Amanita, the rare Amanita volvata, Boletellus russellii, and the fascinating "puffball" Sphaerobolus stellatus.
Let’s begin with Sphaerobolus stellatus by telling you to buy a copy of Sam’s Corner, if you have not, and read about how this remarkable gasteromycete "shoots" a ball of spores 5 feet!!
Those Amanitas are easy to learn if you divide them into six groups. We found (a) brunnescens, virosa, (b) rubescens, flavorubescens, flavoconia, ©) vaginata, ceciliae, caesarea, (d) volvata. Can you determine why these are placed in the four groups based on how they react with Melzer’s reagent, what kind of volva they have, whether the margin of the cap has or does not have striations, and whether they have an annulus?
Let’s look at the boletes. We found Boletellus russellii, Boletus bicolor and ornatipes, Strobilomyces floccopus, Tylopilus felleus and Gyrodon merulioides.
Why have these been placed in 5 separate genera?
Gyrodon is very special for the following reasons. (1) It has sclerotia at the base of the stipe that resemble buckshot; (2) it has an aphid associated with the "buckshot"; and (3) it has unusual pores.
We found Calocera cornea that looks like a Clavaria but is a first cousin to conifer jelly, Dacrymyces. Why?
Tell me three interesting features of Bondarzewia berkeleyi. Why is Lenzites betulina not a gilled fungus? What color are the spores and what shapes do these species have - Clitopilus prunulus, Entoloma spp, Pluteus cervinus, Psathyrella velutina, Laccaria amethystina, Cortinarius iodes, and Crepidotus spp?
Are the following species edible? And, if they are, what are the look-alikes that would make you wish you had consulted a guru? Boletus bicolor, Boletus sensibilis, three Entoloma species, Pluteus cervinus, Clitopilus prunulus, Lepiota procera, Hypomyces lactifluorum, and Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca.
Sam