Prince George residents are being asked to stay on the lookout for an extremely rare mushroom that has been popping up across town.
The fungus is called Sarcosoma Globosum but is often referred to as Witches Cauldron due to its unique appearance.
Dr.Michael Preston, Assistant Professor at UNBC says it is more commonly found in the Spruce Forests of Northern Europe and Eastern Canadian provinces.
“It really isn’t documented in British Columbia at all, it’s not even on the official mushroom and fungi list in the province and so it’s occurring here and people on Facebook actually started documenting its whereabouts,” he explained.
However, Dr.Preston believes that the mushroom has been present in BC for a long time, and some UNBC scientists even have field notes studying its presence in the area back in 1995.
“It’s quite unique looking, it doesn’t look like the traditional mushroom that you find in the supermarket,” he explained, “it lives up to its name of Witches Cauldron because it really does look like something out of Harry Potter.”
The mushroom has a soft, velvety exterior and is filled with a gel that allows it to grow quite large to the point where it can have a diameter of about 10cm, the gel is also utilized to spread its spores throughout its environment.
“One of the things that we do know is that it grows in Old Growth Forests, so forests that are at least 100 years old. It’s also thought that with clear-cutting the fungus doesn’t come back so that’s why it’s really important that we start to document this because if people are observing it in forests that have been clear cut 30 or 40 years ago, that’s an important finding because that’s never been reported before.”
Another reason why research on this fungus is so important is that scientists still don’t completely understand their ecological role in an ecosystem yet.
It is still unknown whether the mushroom is a Saprotroph that recycles nutrients and carbon or a Mycorrhiza, which has a symbiotic relationship with a tree by helping the plant find nutrients and in return, gets carbon and sugars.
To report a finding of the Witches Cauldron mushroom, take a photo of it and submit it to this online survey where information is relayed directly to Dr.Preston.
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