Don't open this post until you guess what the inside of this lumpy little mushroom looks like! Were you right? Come into my post to find out -- and let me know what you guessed!
I found this little mushroom on the same day as that poor little potato in the Foraging Mystery Quiz. They were not even 100 yards from each other! But they have more in common than that!
Scleroderma Mushrooms - So Under-Appreciated!
Even though its lumpy shape is odd for a mushroom, this is a mushroom, for sure. And what a tough mushroom, too! It's living in such tough surroundings -- right at the intersection of an asphalt parking lot and the cement curb! Behind the curb is an island within the parking lot, with some shrubs and weeds. The plants don't get any extra watering or care throughout the year.
But the fungus is living underground and still has enough extra energy to produce this mushroom. Mushrooms are just part of a fungus - the reproductive part, like an apple on an apple tree. So something is going right, down under all that cement and asphalt!
Earthballs and Dead Man's Hands? - What?
Scleroderma mushrooms are also known as Earthballs. The whole group of mushrooms that have their spores inside a ball-like structure. But while this little Earthball starts out like a ball, it doesn't stay that way. It morphs into appendages, like stubby fingers on a hand. That's how it also comes by the name Dead Man's Hand.
Note: The Dead Man's Hand is not the Dead Man's Fingers, which is a completely different mushroom - Xylaria polymorpha. And it's not the same as the Dead Man's Foot, which is another completely different mushroom - Pisolithus arhizus.
What's Inside That Scleroderma?
Have you though about what the inside will look like yet? Think about a young puffball mushroom. Inside, it's a uniform white mass, like a marshmallow. As it gets older, the white marshmallow innards turn yellow, then brown, and then into a black mass of loose spores.
That's so not what the insider of a Scleroderma looks like! Are you ready? Here it is --
Do You Have Scleroderma polyrhizum Near You?
You probably do have some S. polyrhizum near you. They grow in Asia, Europe, and from North to South America. But they spend most of their life completely underground. The earthballs pop up mostly in the summer and fall. Finding information about Scleroderma mushrooms is not the easiest task. They have been under-appreciated by scientists, too.
Have you ever seen this mushroom? I hope you do get a chance to see the multi-colored insides of a young Scleroderma polyrhizum sometime. They are quite a surprise and fascinating.
Sources:
Original photography
Aurora, D. (1986). Mushrooms Demystified. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. 959pp.
Field key - http://www.svims.ca/council/Sclero.htm
Pacific Northwest Pictoral guide - http://www.svims.ca/council/Puffba_I.htm
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma_polyrhizum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma_(fungus)
