Appreciation: Helvella vespertina

Hi Frog,

On November 18, 2018, in a response to my Identification request “ID confirm or correct please”, you identified one of my specimens, a very unusual white mushroom with crumbled head, as “Helvella vespertina parasitized by Hypomyces cervinigenus.”

Among the hundreds of interesting and colourful mushrooms, this one with a convoluted cap and fluted stem fascinated me most. However, I was unable to find more specimens; in fact, I was not able to relocate the one I had photographed.

I was on Mayne Island this past week, and went looking for it. While it was rare a year ago, Helvella vespertina was a common mushroom this year. I found two parasitized specimens, and more than 50 specimens in their natural black or dark grey colour, and not parasitized.

I thought you may be interested in the follow-up.

David

 

Hello there David, good to hear from you! I hope your fall season has gone well.

Thank you for following up - What a huge fruiting!

... Because symbiotic relationships on this planet are the rule rather than (as we used to think) the exception, I wonder about the likely complexity of relationship between the various Hypomyces species and their host mushrooms. I notice that any time researchers are able to dig deeper into species relationships, they find there are more things going on than we know...

- frog

 

Among the 50-60 specimens that I found, I readily recognized two having been parasitized by Hypomyces cervinigenus because they were totally whitish. There were others that were partly, either the cap or the stalk, whitish. I wonder if these specimens were also parasitized.