Fluorescing Mushrooms! - Observation of the Week, 3/21/23

Our Observation of the Week is this group of Hypholoma acutum mushrooms, seen in New Zealand (Aotearoa) by @kathyliuliu!

A resident of Fox Glacier, New Zealand (Weheka), Liu Yang has been hiking at the nearby Lake Matheson (Te Ara Kairaumati) and found over one hundred species of fungus on the trail in the past year. “It is just amazing to mushroom hunt here,” she says. “So much fun.”

Her friend Joseph Pallante told her that some fungi, including the native Hypholoma acutum mushrooms, fluoresce under UV light. “It is a New Zealand endemic fungus and quite common in the forest,” she says. “I found those ones on dead wood around sunset time. So I still have some light to balance the UV lights and the day lights.”

A cosmopolitan genus, Hypholoma is often found in clusters on dead wood and common species like sulphur tuft have a greenish tinge to the gills. Hypholoma acutum is said to be poisonous and have a bitter taste.

Yang (above) has been on iNat for just over two years and tells me:

After I take photos, I always want to know what I was photographed. So iNaturalist is quite a handy website for getting help from experts and learning the value of each species. It makes me more open-minded and definitely more interested in nature!

(Photo of Yang by Moto Ye. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity)

- Take a look more than 3k+ observations in the UV fluorescent organisms project!

- The $50 New Zealand banknote includes an image of the native blue pinkgill mushroom
(Entoloma hochstetteri, Werewere-kokako).

Posted on March 21, 2023 06:17 PM by tiwane