Mycene chlorophos It is a species of fungus in the Fungiaceae family. First described in 1860, the fungus is found in subtropical Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Polynesia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, as well as Australia and Brazil. It’s quite curious to be a fungus like bioluminescence.
In this article we will tell you all the characteristics, classification and properties of the Mycena chlorophos.
Contents
main Features
Mushrooms have pale brownish-gray slime caps up to 30 mm in diameter atop stems 6-30 mm long and up to 1 mm thick. The Mycene chlorophos It is a bioluminescent mushroom that emits a light green glow. Results are produced on fallen wood debris such as twigs and dead tree trunks in the forest. The fungus can grow and fruit under laboratory conditions.and growth conditions that affect bioluminescence have been studied.
The cap is initially convex, then flattens (sometimes with a central depression) and can measure up to 30 mm in diameter. The lid has radial grooves that extend almost to the center, sometimes cracked at the edges with small crenellations. Pale brownish gray in color, fades after swelling, slightly sticky. The white stems are 6–30 mm long, 0.3–1 mm thick, hollow and translucent. It has small hairs on its surface. Stems discoid or slightly bulbous at the base, 1 to 2.5 mm wide. The slender gills are either not attached to the stem or are attached to a light collar that encircles the stem.
First white, then gray, they are quite tight, with 17-32 full-length lamellae and 1-3 rows of lamellae (the shorter lamellae do not extend completely from the cap brim to the stem). Lamellae 0.3 to 1 mm wide, lined with mica. The pulp is very fine and has a strong smell of ammonia. The cap and gills are bioluminescent, while the mycelium and stem are barely luminescent.
The spores are white, smooth, approximately oval, 7-8.5 x 5-6 μm in size.. Basidioids (spore-bearing cells) measure 17-23 x 7.5-10 µm with four sterigmata spores about 3 µm long. The growths are 5-8 µm wide, shorter and more numerous than those of the basidiocarps, and form a somewhat gelatinous shell.
Cheilocystidia (cysts on the margin of the capsular eyelid) measure 60 x 7–21 μm, are transparent, conical or ventricular (swollen). The end of the cheilocystidia is clearly withdrawn or has a short appendage of 15 x 2-3 μm, sometimes branched, thin or slightly thick walls. There are no cysts on the gill side. They are rod-shaped and measure 25-60 x 13-25 μm. Their walls are somewhat thick, prickly on bare surfaces, with short, simple outgrowths up to 3 μm.
Habitat and distribution of Mycena chlorophos
The fruiting bodies of Mycena chlorophos are found in forests where they grow in clumps on woody debris such as twigs, twigs and fallen bark. In Hachijo and Kogijima, Japan, the fungus is mainly found on the decaying petioles of Phoenix roeberenii palms. The fungus needs the right range of humidity to form mushrooms; on Hachijo Island, for example, fruiting occurs only during the rainy seasons of June/July and September/October when the relative humidity is around 88%, usually the day after the rain. Experimental studies have shown that mushroom buds that are too wet warp, while too dry conditions cause the caps to warp and rupture as the fragile gel membrane covering them ruptures.
In Asia, the species has been found in Japan, Taiwan, Polynesia, Java and Sri Lanka. In Japan, the fungus is becoming rarer as its natural habit declines. Several Australian field guides have reported the species in the country. This fungus has also been documented several times in Brazil. Mycene chlorophos it is one of several mushrooms featured on a series of postage stamps issued in Samoa in 1985.
Bioluminescence of Mycena chlorophos
The species was first scientifically described as Agaricus chlorphos in 1860 by Miles Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis. The original specimen was collected from the Bonin Islands in October 1854 by American botanist Charles Wright during his North Pacific Expedition and Survey Expedition of 1853-1856. Pier Andrea Saccardo transferred the species to the genus Mycenae in an 1887 publication. Daniel Desjardin and his colleagues redescribed the species and established a phylogenetic specimen in 2010.
In 1860, Berkeley and Curtis described the species Agaricus cyanophos from material also collected from the Bonin Islands. The material was found near where the M. chlorphos specimen was originally found, but several weeks later. Japanese mycologists Seiya Ito and Sanshi Imai studied these collections in the late 1930s and concluded that the cyanobacterium Agaricus blazei was the same species as M. chlorophos, despite the fact that the shape of the cap, the combination of the gills and the color of the light emitted were different.
Desjardin and his colleagues agree with this decision after examining type material from both taxa. M. chlorphos is classified in the section Exornatae of the genus Mycenae. Other luminescent species in this section are M. discobasis and M. marginata. Some authors considered M. illuminans to be synonymous with M. chlorphos due to morphological similarities, but molecular analysis indicated that they were separate species.
Since the fungus is small and only fruits for limited seasons on a small scale, the researchers studied the conditions necessary for the artificial growth of the species under laboratory conditions in order to have more material to study the mechanism of bioluminescence. and help protect this species. . The optimum temperature for mycelium growth is 27°C, while the optimum temperature for the growth of the prey is 21°C. These temperatures are consistent with the subtropical climate where this species is commonly found.
Maximum luminescence occurs at 27°C, approximately 25 to 39 hours after the start of the formation of the blanks, when the cover is fully extended. At 21°C, the luminescence persists for about 3 days and becomes undetectable to the naked eye about 72 hours after primordium initiation.
I hope with this information you can learn more about Mycena chlorophos and its characteristics.