For people who have visited the UBC Point Grey campus two weeks ago and strolled along Main Mall, you might have noticed some laminated signs that stuck up from the ground. Did your curious mind drag you closer to investigate? They were identification signs for mushrooms that have sprung up on the grassy patches along Main Mall.
For people who have visited the UBC Point Grey campus two weeks ago and strolled along Main Mall, you might have noticed some laminated signs that stuck up from the ground. Did your curious mind drag you closer to investigate? They were identification signs for mushrooms that have sprung up on the grassy patches along Main Mall. The group who spearheaded this project gives us the inside scoop:
Fungi have an essential role in the environment in recycling and exchanging nutrients, as they act as decomposers in their ecosystem. Most fungi spend most of their lives living as mycelium – a network of microscopic filaments called hyphae that slowly grow and branch underground. Fungi are usually only noticeable through their fruiting body, which consist of a stalk and a cap. Fruiting bodies release spores that are dispersed through various ways to grow into new hypha. Some fungi only fruit once in many years as their mycelium continues to grow in the substratum. The abundance of mushrooms this summer, fruiting on UBC’s Main Mall after the June rains has been quite a phenomenon.
Mushrooms blooming at the base of a tree across from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum are identified.
Inspired by the masses of mushrooms, a group of graduate students specializing in the biology of fungi set out to provide identification signs for anyone interested. Ludovic Le Renard used Mushrooms Demystified, written by David Arora, to identify the various species. Anna Bazzicalupo and Jaclyn Dee, also both mycology graduate students, led a group of students to assemble a number of signs, designed by Derek Tan, Beaty Biodiversity Museum’s Digital Media Specialist. Each sign indicated the mushroom’s scientific and common names, as well as its toxicity. The public could look at the signs and observe their amazing, delicate creatures growing in the grass fields and along the walkways.
The species identified by Ludovic included Paneolus foenisecii, Deconica moelleri, Parasola plicatilis, Conocybe lacteal and Coprinopsis lagopus. Both Paneolus foenisecii (Haymaker’s panaelous) and Deconica moelleri (Moeller’s stropharia) are poisonous and should not be taken as food. The Woolly Inky Cap, or Coprinopsis lagopus, is probably harmless, whereas the toxicity of Parasola plicatilis, the Pleated Inky Cap, and Conocybe lactea, the White Cone Head, is left unknown.
UBC research professor in mycology Dr. Mary Berbee suspected that the abundance of fruiting mushrooms this year was a result of the new sod on Main Mall.
“The Deconica moelleri usually grows on rich soil or dung, and since it was the most common fungus out there, it suggests the compost used to grow the sod included manure,” said Dr. Berbee. “The manure plus the heavy rain was just what the fungi needed for spectacular fruiting.”
(Photo at the top) A group of UBC graduate students identifies these mushrooms blooming on a grassy patch along the walkways of Main Mall as Deconica moelleri.
Written by UBC student Alison Fung and edited by edited by Dr. Mary Berbee and graduate student Ludovid LeRenard.