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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

There’s a New Fungus Amongst Us

Posted in Science on October 9 2012, by Roy Halling

This is an image of a mushroom that I have never seen on the NYBG campus as long as I’ve been here (around 28 years) and I am 99.9% sure it has never before been reported here.

Leratiomyces ceres

There are several unrelated genera of mushrooms that seem to prefer growing on wood chip mulch as a substrate and seemingly have a global distribution. Right now after the recent rains, the mushrooms that favor this artificial habitat are in nearly every flower bed on campus.

The name of the mushroom is Leratiomyces ceres, described for the first time from Australia in 1888.

Roy E. Halling, PhD is the Curator of Mycology at the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden.