Bucharest Fungus Sparks Identity Crisis: Experts Demand Substrate Analysis Over Photo Guesses

Curiosity. Anyone on the fediverse knows what this fungus is? It's pretty large, I'd say 30-35cm radius. Location: Bucharest, Romania #fungus #mushroom #fungi

Helvella crispa https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Helvella_crispa.html Ecology: Possibly mycorrhizal; growing alone or gregariously under conifers or hardwoods, on rotting wood or terrestrially (often in disturbed-ground locations); summer and fall, or over winter in warm climates; originally described from Carniola, in present-day Slovenia (Scopoli 1772) and epitypified from Sweden (Skrede et al 2017); widely distributed in Europe and, as a morphological species, reported from central Asia and throughout North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Colorado, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Cap: 1.5-7 cm high; 1.5-4 cm wide; saddle-shaped and/or irregularly lobed; surface bald and smooth or slightly wrinkled; white to creamy or pale yellowish; undersurface finely fuzzy (use a hand lens), colored like the upper surface or slightly darker; the margin often curled upwards in places, not becoming fused with the stem where contact occurs. Stem: 3-12 cm long; 0.5-3.5 cm wide; white; deeply and ornately ribbed, with cross-veins and pockets. Flesh: Thin; brittle; often chambered in the stem; whitish; not changing when sliced. Odor: Not distinctive. Microscopic Features: Spores 16-21 x 11-15 m; broadly ellipsoid; smooth; with one large, central oil droplet and, sometimes, several smaller droplets at each end; hyaline in KOH. Asci 225-275 x 10-17.5 m; 8-spored. Paraphyses exceeding the asci by 10-30 m; 3-5 m wide, with clavate apices 5-12.5 m wide. Excipular surface trichoderm-like; terminal elements appearing "cellular" from above, 8-18 m across, smooth, hyaline in KOH. #mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Coltricia cinnamomea https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Coltricia_cinnamomea.html Ecology: Apparently mycorrhizal, at least facultatively (see Tedersoo and collaborators, 2007); possibly also saprobic; growing alone or in small groups under hardwoods in packed soil, often along paths and roadways; infrequently on deadwood; found east of the Rocky Mountains and on the West Coast. Cap: 1-5 cm; more or less round in outline; flat or vase-shaped; dry; silky-shiny when fresh; cinnamon brown, usually with concentric bands of colors; the margin straight and thin, sometimes eroding in age. Pore Surface: Yellowish brown to brown or cinnamon brown; running down the stem or not; pores angular to circular, 2-3 per mm; tubes 3 mm deep at most; not bruising. Stem: 1-5 cm long; 1-4 mm thick; dry; brown to cinnamon brown; velvety; more or less equal; tough. Flesh: Rusty brown to orange; thin; tough. Chemical Reactions: Flesh instantly black with KOH. Spore Print: Yellowish brown. Microscopic Features: Spores 6-10 x 4.5-7 ; smooth; elliptical; weakly dextrinoid. Setae absent. Hyphal system monomitic. Clamp connections absent. #mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

My first time spotting some sort of brown cup fungus, should be a Peziza species. Identification beyond that point can be pretty difficult without microscopy, from what I understand. Some are edible, but tasteless, so mostly not harvested for the table. Kind of looks like frying chicken skin. #nature #fungi #mushroom #mushrooms #mushtodon