Australian native fungi spring to life during colder, wetter months
It is a mysterious world of colourful toadstools right out of a fairy tale, of bizarre white "cages" that smell of death and decay and of ghostly mushrooms that glow eerily in the dark.
Australia's native macrofungi — those visible fungus forms that can be seen with the naked eye and often appear during the coldest, darkest time of the year — play an essential role within any ecosystem.
They are nature's recyclers, fertilisers and rehabilitators.
While a few notorious introduced varieties have engendered a toxic reputation, Australia's native macrofungi remain largely an enigma.
Fewer than 10 per cent of the potentially hundreds of thousands of fungus species in Australia (estimates range up to 250,000) have been formally identified and described.
"It shows how little we know," ecologist and author Alison Pouliot said.
"There are whole lot of reasons for that. I think the big thing, for a lot of them, is they are out of sight, out of mind.
"They are most often underground for most of the year."
Fungi occupy a strange space somewhere between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, having some traits of each but being truly neither.
"They are a whole separate kingdom," Dr Pouliot explained.
Dr Pouliot said fungi get their nutrition through digestion like animals rather than from sunlight like plants.
"Fungi don't photosynthesise like plants," she said.
"They digest like we do.
"They are also made of a compound called chitin instead of cellulose like a plant. We find that in the animal kingdom. That's what a crayfish's shell is made of, for example."
The most visible component of macrofungi, such as the parasol-shaped mushroom, makes up a mere fraction of the living thing itself.
It is, in fact, the sex organ of a much larger organism that is most often hidden underground.
"Collectively we call them [the visible component] the reproductive sporing bodies," Dr Pouliot said
"A mushroom is just one type of structure. There are puffballs and morels, for example, and these are not mushrooms."
The greater part of the organism below the surface is called a "mycelium", which includes the seldom seen root structure.
A mycelium can range in size from mere specks to metres.
Some are among the largest living things on the planet, stretching square kilometres.
Many of the most familiar varieties become active in autumn, activated by changes in the soil.
"Why we see [them] most in autumn is the mycelium responds to a drop in soil temperature and an increase in soil moisture," Dr Pouliot explained.
A warmer, drier summer across south-eastern Australia has likely had an impact on how many native mushrooms and other macrofungi are able to be seen this year, according to Victorian Western District field naturalist Helen Langley.
"A few are appearing now in the Western District," Ms Langley said.
"There does appear to be less of them because it has been so dry.
"It has also got cold quickly this year, which hasn't helped."
Dr Pouliot said fungi were resilient, however, and should bounce back if and when the rain returned next year.
News stories about toxic mushrooms have blurred the terms "mushroom" and "toadstool".
Scientifically, at least, they are all now referred to as mushrooms.
"Originally a mushroom was an umbrella-shaped fungus that was edible, and a toadstool was an umbrella-shaped fungus that was toxic," Dr Pouliot explained.
"Over the years, those two terms have been used synonymously, and we saw books being published about things like poisonous mushrooms. The world was like, 'Hang on a minute. They're supposed to be edible'.
"Today, the word 'toadstool' has pretty much fallen out of use. It's more a poetic or literary term.
"And today the word mushroom doesn't refer to edibility, it just means umbrella-shaped."
The term "toadstool" (a stool for toads in English) has an etymology rooted in its toxicity, however.
"Tod" is the German word for "death", while "stuhl" is German for "chair".
A "bolete", meanwhile, is mushroom-shaped macrofungus that has a spongy underside with pores rather than the gills synonymous with mushrooms.
Ms Langley said people should avoid foraging for native fungi.
"Like many native plants, native mushrooms are not supposed to be picked and collected," she said.
"They are meant to be left alone in their natural environment.
"For a lot of native fungi, we just don't know about their toxicity. It is not worth the risk.
"My advice is not to touch them and just to look at them and enjoy them for what they are."
Several of the most recognisable macrofungi, including the charismatic fly amanita (Amanita muscaria), the infamous death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) and familiar edible varieties such as the common mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), are not native to Australia.
Dr Pouliot encouraged bush explorers to find and photograph Australia's fantastic and fabulous native fungi but suggested we don't disturb them and leave them be.
She said, among the potentially hundreds of thousands of species that could be discovered in Australian forests, were these spectacular varieties:
The striking rhubarb bolete (Boletellus obscurecoccineus) is distinctive for its red-to-rhubarb-coloured cap and underbelly of yellow pores. It's found among eucalypt leaf litter in Victoria, Tasmania, south-western WA and south-east NSW.
The widespread pretty horn (Calocera sinensis – calo = beautiful and cera = horn in Greek) appears as little yellow clubs or spikes. It's a wood-recycling fungus that grows on logs, branches and twigs.
Growing in south-eastern Australia, the green skinhead (Cortinarius austrovenetus) is unusual for its green colouration. Members of the genus Cortinarius are known as webcaps as they have a cortina, or web-like veil that protects the gills during early growth stages.
Appearing like rubies among the leaf litter on the forest floor, the tiny but conspicuous ruby bonnet (Cruentomycena viscidocruenta) is always a joy to find. It grows in wetter forests in Australia and New Zealand.
This fungus is not your average umbrella-shaped mushroom. The smooth cage fungus (Ileodictyon gracile), while striking to look at, has a fetid odour that is likely to repel you. Native to Australia, it often pops up in garden beds.
The gem-studded puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) is a cosmopolitan species with many common names including warted puffball, common puffball and devil's snuff-box. You'll find it in all kinds of habitats from forests and woodlands to grass clearings, gardens and track edges.
The Australian parasol (Macrolepiota clelandii) often appears in grassy verges along roadsides. This handsome species is recognisable for its raised central brown knob, or umbo, and "chocolate-chip" scales. It's also known as the graceful parasol or slender parasol.
The endearing pixie's parasol (Mycena interrupta) has a Gondwanan distribution but here in Australia you'll find it in Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, South Australia and if you're really lucky, in Queensland.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
‘Zoom in': Australian celebrities Lisa Wilkinson and Hamish Blake spoof viral ‘kiss cam' drama
A pair of Australian celebrities, Lisa Wilkinson and Hamish Blake, have hilariously spoofed the moment an American tech CEO was caught hugging a woman who was not his wife at a Coldplay concert. Wilkinson and Blake were in the audience for one of the stops on American stand-up comedian Nikki Glaser's tour of Australia. And all individuals involved apparently decided to have some fun. During her set, Glaser offered up her own version of the kiss cam that caught out Andy Byron, CEO of the company Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the business's chief people officer. 'Let's see if we have one more we can find. Can we zoom in?' Glaser asked as the camera focused on Blake and Wilkinson, who were pretending to be intimate. 'Is that ... is that ... is that Hamish and Lisa!? Oooooh, busted! Someone call Zoe right now. What the f***?' Blake is, of course, married to author and entrepreneur Zoe Foster Blake. Wilkinson is married to the former rugby player Peter FitzSimons. The clip of Mr Byron and Ms Cabot enjoying Coldplay's performance together, then ducking for cover upon being shown on the big screen, has gone viral this week. The scandal ended with Mr Byron resigning from his role at Astronomer. 'As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding,' the company said in a statement. 'Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met. 'Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted. The board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive.' Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy is serving as interim CEO. The video of Mr Byron and Ms Cabot quickly went viral after being shared on TikTok. 'Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy,' Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin quipped to the crowd. 'Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,' Astronomer said. 'While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not. 'We're continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems.' Mr Byron's job reportedly paid him between $717,000 and a million dollars per year, plus performance-based bonuses.
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
Indigenous rangers join WA's Burrup Peninsula underwater heritage survey
Caleb Pitt-Cook is drifting just above the ocean floor, running his fingers through the soft sand. The 24-year-old Ngarluma man is searching for the stone tools his ancestors used thousands of years ago. "If you told me I'd be doing this work two years ago, I would have laughed in your face," he says. "It's one of the coolest parts of our job. I'd say it's my favourite part right now." Mr Pitt-Cook is contributing to research that has already made history. "There's only ever been two submerged Aboriginal archaeological sites mapped in Australia," Flinders University maritime archaeologist John McCarthy says. "Those were found by our team here." When humans first populated the Australian continent about 65,000 years ago, the sea level was much lower. "There's a huge area of archaeological landscape that's been lost to sea level change," Dr McCarthy says. Since 2019, Dr McCarthy's team has been trying to find artefacts from that time, submerged off the coast of the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia. The region's traditional custodians call the peninsula Murujuga. "The initial discoveries made in Murujuga were stone tools. They're very common — the sort of knives and forks of their day," Dr McCarthy says. "They survive very well through sea-level change because they're made of igneous rock, which is very hard and durable." Maritime archaeology of this kind is still in its infancy in Australia. Dr McCarthy says it is almost certain there are significant sites all across the continent's perimeter, and mapping where they are is the first step to protecting them. This year's round of underwater surveys is the first time in Australia that Indigenous rangers have accompanied maritime archaeologists. It is the culmination of more than a year of training for a handful of Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation rangers. "First, you start off with pool dives and it's a big jump up to actually get out on the water," Ngarluma ranger Malik Churnside says. "Once you're out there in the water and there's actually animals … sharks swimming around, [it] can be quite a scary sight, at first." One of the submerged sites Mr Churnside surveyed was an area that thousands of years ago would have been a freshwater spring. The spring is referenced in a Ngarluma cultural song his elders still sing today. "It's just like evidence and a connection to something they've talked about and sung about for such a long time," he said. Back at camp, Yindjibarndi man and Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation director Vincent Adams pulls on a virtual reality headset. It transports him from the hot Pilbara afternoon to the silty depths of Murujuga, where he can look out at the seabed alongside the divers. The goggles connect to a live feed from a remote operated vehicle (ROV), allowing elders and knowledge holders to identify artefacts in real time. Mr Adams says the technology is a big hit among the community elders. "It's like 20 years ago when the mobile phone came out and they were all frightened of it," he laughs. Mr Adams says several of the artefacts he has helped classify trace back to ancient hunting, crafts, and ceremonies; practices that still exist in some form today. "When they bring this up from under water, we can see that this is history from here, culture from here," he said. It is also an opportunity to inform researchers of the local lore and rules behind the tools. "If it's men's stuff [that] comes up, women can't see this, kids can't see it. Only men that have been through law," Mr Adams says. "We've been practising for years on land. This culture now is under water." The ROV will allow the team to rapidly survey larger and harder-to-reach areas. Mapping these sites is a new frontier for cultural heritage protections and could prove pertinent for waters crisscrossed by bulk carriers and offshore pipelines. Murujuga intersects with the Carnarvon basin, which is home to Australia's largest gas reserves. Geoff Bailey, a world authority on submerged landscapes, says robust information is essential to ensure industry can navigate the uncharted history off the Burrup Peninsula. "If somebody puts a hole in the seabed … they're quite likely to expose something that is of relevance and interest to the environmental history of the landscape and the cultural history of that landscape," Professor Bailey says. "The key to this is good communication and understanding." Earlier this month, the Murujuga Cultural Landscape was granted World Heritage status by the United Nations in recognition of its outstanding universal value. In UNESCO's unanimous ruling, member countries lauded the underwater archaeological work as a critical part of the nomination and called for further study. Mr Vincent Adams says the research is laying important groundwork as more gas projects look to come online. "This has popped up a lot of times in conversations with elders, saying what about the pipeline?" he says. "There's no law, there's no rule for any of this. Beyond the enormity of the task at hand, Mr Pitt-Cook's time below the waves is one of reflection. "Our culture is an oral-based tradition so it's all passed down through generations of speaking, songs and teaching," he says. "A lot of people are really sceptical because we don't have anything written down on paper. "But to actually go out and explore these places where the stories originate from is really special. "It's a whole different world under the water." Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream anytime on ABC iview.
ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
Australian native fungi spring to life during colder, wetter months
Deep in native Australian forests is a wonderland that springs to life each winter. It is a mysterious world of colourful toadstools right out of a fairy tale, of bizarre white "cages" that smell of death and decay and of ghostly mushrooms that glow eerily in the dark. Australia's native macrofungi — those visible fungus forms that can be seen with the naked eye and often appear during the coldest, darkest time of the year — play an essential role within any ecosystem. They are nature's recyclers, fertilisers and rehabilitators. While a few notorious introduced varieties have engendered a toxic reputation, Australia's native macrofungi remain largely an enigma. Fewer than 10 per cent of the potentially hundreds of thousands of fungus species in Australia (estimates range up to 250,000) have been formally identified and described. "It shows how little we know," ecologist and author Alison Pouliot said. "There are whole lot of reasons for that. I think the big thing, for a lot of them, is they are out of sight, out of mind. "They are most often underground for most of the year." Fungi occupy a strange space somewhere between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, having some traits of each but being truly neither. "They are a whole separate kingdom," Dr Pouliot explained. Dr Pouliot said fungi get their nutrition through digestion like animals rather than from sunlight like plants. "Fungi don't photosynthesise like plants," she said. "They digest like we do. "They are also made of a compound called chitin instead of cellulose like a plant. We find that in the animal kingdom. That's what a crayfish's shell is made of, for example." The most visible component of macrofungi, such as the parasol-shaped mushroom, makes up a mere fraction of the living thing itself. It is, in fact, the sex organ of a much larger organism that is most often hidden underground. "Collectively we call them [the visible component] the reproductive sporing bodies," Dr Pouliot said "A mushroom is just one type of structure. There are puffballs and morels, for example, and these are not mushrooms." The greater part of the organism below the surface is called a "mycelium", which includes the seldom seen root structure. A mycelium can range in size from mere specks to metres. Some are among the largest living things on the planet, stretching square kilometres. Many of the most familiar varieties become active in autumn, activated by changes in the soil. "Why we see [them] most in autumn is the mycelium responds to a drop in soil temperature and an increase in soil moisture," Dr Pouliot explained. A warmer, drier summer across south-eastern Australia has likely had an impact on how many native mushrooms and other macrofungi are able to be seen this year, according to Victorian Western District field naturalist Helen Langley. "A few are appearing now in the Western District," Ms Langley said. "There does appear to be less of them because it has been so dry. "It has also got cold quickly this year, which hasn't helped." Dr Pouliot said fungi were resilient, however, and should bounce back if and when the rain returned next year. News stories about toxic mushrooms have blurred the terms "mushroom" and "toadstool". Scientifically, at least, they are all now referred to as mushrooms. "Originally a mushroom was an umbrella-shaped fungus that was edible, and a toadstool was an umbrella-shaped fungus that was toxic," Dr Pouliot explained. "Over the years, those two terms have been used synonymously, and we saw books being published about things like poisonous mushrooms. The world was like, 'Hang on a minute. They're supposed to be edible'. "Today, the word 'toadstool' has pretty much fallen out of use. It's more a poetic or literary term. "And today the word mushroom doesn't refer to edibility, it just means umbrella-shaped." The term "toadstool" (a stool for toads in English) has an etymology rooted in its toxicity, however. "Tod" is the German word for "death", while "stuhl" is German for "chair". A "bolete", meanwhile, is mushroom-shaped macrofungus that has a spongy underside with pores rather than the gills synonymous with mushrooms. Ms Langley said people should avoid foraging for native fungi. "Like many native plants, native mushrooms are not supposed to be picked and collected," she said. "They are meant to be left alone in their natural environment. "For a lot of native fungi, we just don't know about their toxicity. It is not worth the risk. "My advice is not to touch them and just to look at them and enjoy them for what they are." Several of the most recognisable macrofungi, including the charismatic fly amanita (Amanita muscaria), the infamous death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) and familiar edible varieties such as the common mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), are not native to Australia. Dr Pouliot encouraged bush explorers to find and photograph Australia's fantastic and fabulous native fungi but suggested we don't disturb them and leave them be. She said, among the potentially hundreds of thousands of species that could be discovered in Australian forests, were these spectacular varieties: The striking rhubarb bolete (Boletellus obscurecoccineus) is distinctive for its red-to-rhubarb-coloured cap and underbelly of yellow pores. It's found among eucalypt leaf litter in Victoria, Tasmania, south-western WA and south-east NSW. The widespread pretty horn (Calocera sinensis – calo = beautiful and cera = horn in Greek) appears as little yellow clubs or spikes. It's a wood-recycling fungus that grows on logs, branches and twigs. Growing in south-eastern Australia, the green skinhead (Cortinarius austrovenetus) is unusual for its green colouration. Members of the genus Cortinarius are known as webcaps as they have a cortina, or web-like veil that protects the gills during early growth stages. Appearing like rubies among the leaf litter on the forest floor, the tiny but conspicuous ruby bonnet (Cruentomycena viscidocruenta) is always a joy to find. It grows in wetter forests in Australia and New Zealand. This fungus is not your average umbrella-shaped mushroom. The smooth cage fungus (Ileodictyon gracile), while striking to look at, has a fetid odour that is likely to repel you. Native to Australia, it often pops up in garden beds. The gem-studded puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) is a cosmopolitan species with many common names including warted puffball, common puffball and devil's snuff-box. You'll find it in all kinds of habitats from forests and woodlands to grass clearings, gardens and track edges. The Australian parasol (Macrolepiota clelandii) often appears in grassy verges along roadsides. This handsome species is recognisable for its raised central brown knob, or umbo, and "chocolate-chip" scales. It's also known as the graceful parasol or slender parasol. The endearing pixie's parasol (Mycena interrupta) has a Gondwanan distribution but here in Australia you'll find it in Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, South Australia and if you're really lucky, in Queensland.
