Toadstool Tuesday and Pop-Up Central Park Walk
Sunset Shelf - Pseudomerulius curtisii
Good evening, friends,
A broken computer pushed us from MM to TT, but we’re back online this week with Pseudomerulius curtisii. The mushroom doesn’t have a common name but Ciara and I put our heads together and came up with the “sunset shelf”. We spent the past handful of days in Cape Cod, where there was a nice diversity of mushrooms, and this little shelf stood out in particular because of their color, texture, and taste.
I’ll also be down in Central Park this Sunday morning to look for mushrooms if you want to join. More info at the bottom.
Fun Facts
Despite this mushroom having a polypore shape, it’s technically a bolete; one of the spongy, tubed, cap and stem mushrooms (like the Xerocomellus we looked at a couple weeks ago). This boils down to taxonomy - the science of how organisms are classified - where Pseudomerulius is in the family Tapinellaceae (I wrote about Tapinella atrotomentosa a couple years ago) contained in the order Boletales. Remember folks: Dear King Phillip Calls Out For Good Soup - a pneumonic device for the order of organisms: Domain Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species.
While these mushrooms are considered inedible (very bitter and left an astringent sensation on my tongue when I nibbled a bit), they do possess multiple types of antioxidants. There are several different studies out of South Korea and Japan that indicate these mushrooms have unique, free-radical scavenging (antioxidant) compounds known as Curtisians.
Ecology
The fungus is saprobic, unlike most boletes, and seems to only digest pine in which it creates a brown rot. The wood becomes blocky and brown as the fungus digests the cellulose and hemicellulose in the plant cell walls.
The mushrooms can be found in four - potentially five - different continents and the iNaturalist distribution map is pretty peculiar. The mushrooms seem to only grow on the east coast of the Americas, Asia, and Australia. Than there are two rogue sightings in Madagascar and Spain. The mushrooms pop up spring through fall, predominantly in the summer, and are a fairly uncommon find.
A similar species is the Oyster Roll-Rim (Tapinella panuoides). T. panuoides has a similar form, if anything our specimen is more similar in shape to T. panuoides; but the color of the false gills, the bruising, and the taste leads us to P. curtisii. The cap texture and bruising were similar to that of the dyer’s polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii), but these mushrooms were far more gelatinous and rubbery - like they were made of flan.
Central Park Walk
A little short notice but it looks like there will be some rain Friday into Saturday, so let’s see what that brings us on Sunday. We’ll meet at 10:15 AM on 7/14 near the toolboxes at the entrance of the Ramble. The blue dot on the image below has the specific GPS coordinates - just off the West drive across from the CPC yard. Bring water and snacks if you think you’ll need them because we might be out for a few hours, but you can come and go as you’d please. My number is 203-252-9421 if you’re lost (both in the park or in life in general) or just running late.
All are welcome and I hope to see you there,
Aubrey
References:
https://boletes.wpamushroomclub.org/product/pseudomerulius-curtisii/#lightbox/1/
Lee J, Hong JH, Kim JD, Ahn BJ, Kim BS, Kim GH, Kim JJ. The antioxidant properties of solid-culture extracts of basidiomycetous fungi. J Gen Appl Microbiol. 2013;59(4):279-85. doi: 10.2323/jgam.59.279. PMID: 24005177.
Lee J, Hong JH, Kim JD, Ahn BJ, Kim BS, Kim GH, Kim JJ. The antioxidant properties of solid-culture extracts of basidiomycetous fungi. J Gen Appl Microbiol. 2013;59(4):279-85. doi: 10.2323/jgam.59.279. PMID: 24005177.
https://www.lillo.org.ar/journals/index.php/lilloa/article/view/1641
Hi - what do your mushroom walks cost? Do you take Venmo or just cash?