Fungus Fact Friday

Tagged: club

mushrooms with a club morphology

Phleogena faginea on oak bark 0

Fungus Fact

#233: Phleogena faginea

Phleogena faginea is a bizarre little mushroom. This tiny grey-brown mushroom grows on wood or bark, making it rather difficult to spot. Even when you do find it, you’d probably think it’s a slime mold (FFF#053): the fruitbody features a round head on a small stalk, much like many slime molds. Despite that similarity, P. faginea is a basidiomycete and its closest relatives are the rust fungi (FFF#130) – something you probably wouldn’t guess by looking at the mushroom. P. faginea goes by the common name of “Fenugreek Stalkball,” which is a reference to its shape (ball on a stalk) and fenugreek or curry-like odor when dried.

#038: Mushroom Morphology: Corals and Clubs 1

Fungus Fact

#038: Mushroom Morphology: Corals and Clubs

Most mushroom-forming Orders of fungi has evolved a coral or club morphology. To simplify things, I am using “Corals and Clubs” to refer to only clavarioid (coral-like) mushrooms in the Phylum Basidiomycota.  For clavarioid mushrooms in the Phylum Ascomycota, see FFF#036 (Earth Tongues) and FFF#037 (Earth Tongue Look-Alikes).  Unlike the earth tongues and look-alikes, the corals and clubs produce spores externally on basidia (see FFF#012 and #013 for more on basidia and asci).  If you have a microscope available, checking to see how your mushroom produces its spores can help eliminate some possibilities.