Thursday, September 22, 2022

Tiger's Eye

I have a lot (no, a ton) of mushrooms coming up all over the yard, and some emanate aromas of old musty socks as I walk past. Most look familiar, and I thought this might be turkey tail until I stopped and checked - turkey tail is a shelf, or bracket, fungus growing along the trunks of trees and woody debris. This one was growing in the soil, which gave me pause. It sports eye-catching concentric rings. I asked for confirmation help in a mushroom ID group but haven't yet got a response.


I do think this is Coltricia perennis, the circumboreal tiger's eye fungus. When they grow close to each other, their caps fuse together. Here is the same group 3 days later

Their caps can become cup-like - they turn upwards, and their undersides are spongey, without gills (a bolete mushroom), as you can see from the sections I broke off.


They are able to extract carbs from the roots of nearby plants, and provide minerals to said plant in return. It does this without penetrating the roots, so is called ectomycorrhizal. Intriguing!