Rare mushroom, previously thought to only grow in US, discovered in Moravia
A Czech amateur mycologist has discovered a unique truffle-like mushroom in South Moravia. It was identified by experts as Sedecula pulvinata, a rare and protected species previously thought to grow only in the west of the United States.
Sedecula pulvinata is a potato-shaped mushroom that grows completely or partially underground. That’s why it is commonly referred to as the ‘false truffle’. It has a cream coloured peel and black spores hidden inside.
The rare species was found in the Pálava protected landscape area in South Moravia, on the border with Austria, already back in 2011, but the discovery was only made public this week.
Until now, Sedecula pulvinata was only known from the mountain regions in the west of the United States and this is the first time its presence has been confirmed in Europe, says Miroslav Kolařík from the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Microbiology.
“It was a big surprise for us. It was like finding an Australian platypus in the Vltava River. In the United States it grows in dry, deciduous mountain forests, in an elevation of 2,000 metres and up. If you know the beautiful forests of Sierra Nevada, that’s the mushroom’s original habitat. But Pálava is very different. It’s a lowland, covered by broad-leaved oak forests.”
So how did the rare underground mushroom get from the United States all the way to south Moravia? According to one theory, it could have spread through spores, which are able to cover extremely long distances. But it is also possible that the species has a broader range than previously thought, says Mr. Kolařík:
“The fungus was first found in 2011 and since the original discovery the fruit body was never found again. So one possibility is that the fungus has been there for a long time in very small populations.
“Another hypothesis is that the US species is endemic in the United States and the species we have here could be a very young incipient species that has emerged from the American population and has different ecological requirements. But the genetic data we have are still not sufficient to prove that.”
The mushroom was discovered by an amateur mycologist Slavomír Valda, who immediately realised he came across something unusual. However, identifying the mushroom proved to be quite a complicated process, says Mr. Kolařík:
“We carried out DNA sequencing, but at the time, there were no available data about the US population. In 2015 we compared it with newly-published data from the US and we went Bingo, it’s the same fungus!
“Ever since then, Slavomír tried to find the fungus again, because we needed more fruit bodies to properly describe it. But because the search was not successful, we decided to publish our findings in an international journal.”
While new species of fungi are reported in Czechia on a regular basis, they are almost always microscopic species, such as moulds. Finding a new mushroom that has never been found in Europe before is therefore considered a unique achievement.
