Rare ‘Devil’s Cigar’ fungus discovered in Nara
One of the world’s rarest fungi, an exotic star-shaped mushroom known to exist at only three locations on Earth, has been discovered in the mountains of Nara prefecture.
The Devil’s Cigar (a.k.a. “Texas Star”) — known to botanists as Chorioactis geaster — had been observed only in central Texas and at two remote locations in Japan prior to the recent discovery in Nara. The peculiar fungus is described as a dark brown cigar-shaped capsule that transforms into a tan-colored star when it splits open to release its spores. It is also one of only a few known fungi that produce an audible hiss when releasing spores.
First reported in 1893 in Austin, Texas, the curious mushroom appears in a limited area of central Texas each year, and until now, the rare sightings in Japan have occurred in forests in Miyazaki and Kochi prefectures. The fungus is included on the red list of threatened species published by Japan’s Environment Ministry.
The recent Nara discovery was made by Masakuni Kimura, curator of a natural history museum in the town of Kawakami (Nara prefecture). Kimura first encountered Devil’s Cigars in October 2006 while surveying a forest near Kawakami, where he found 12 of them growing from a dead oak tree next to a mountain stream at an elevation of 470 meters (about 1,550 ft). Nearly a year later, in September 2007, he discovered four more of the mushrooms when he returned to the site with Shuichi Kurogi, curator of the Miyazaki Prefectural Museum of Nature and History. Their findings were presented at a recent meeting of the Mycological Society of Japan.
The site of the Nara discovery, like the previous Miyazaki and Kochi sites, is located in a humid forest. At all three sites, the Devil’s Cigars were observed growing on dead oak trees near a stream.
Texas Star, the state fungus of Texas?!
In central Texas (which is located at approximately the same latitude as southern Japan), the rare fungus appears during fall and winter, growing from the stumps and dead roots of cedar elm trees.
Tsuyoshi Hosoya, head botanist at Japan’s National Science Museum, says, “The DNA of the Devil’s Cigar from Miyazaki is consistent with the one from Texas. They are regarded as the same species.”
While it is unknown how this exceedingly rare mushroom came to appear only in Japan and central Texas, one intriguing theory suggests that spores from Japan were swept up in an Asian dust cloud and carried across the globe.
[Sources: Sankei, SAS via Watashi to Tokyo]
See also: Rainy season brings glow-in-the-dark mushrooms
Beautiful shape…
is it edible?
or maybe the spores were swept up in a Texas dust cloud and carried across the globe. :P
I wonder how many of our indigenous species are actually hitchhikers in those dust clouds…
Great story, and great pictures! Thanks!
Does anyone have a link to the audio of the “hiss” sound?
Wow, very interesting mushroom. Quite odd that it would appear only in Japan and Texas, of all places. I wonder, why would they name it “Devil’s Cigar”? Maybe it’s poisonous. xD
By the way, would you like to exchange blogroll links? I’ll go ahead and add you anyway, but let me know if you could.
Whoa, that’s crazy. It’s a wonder of what happens in nature.
How similar are the climates and the elevation of the ecosystems in the two parts of the world, I wonder. Parallel evolution, perhaps?
[…] Rare Texas Star Fungus Appears in Nara: So now, if you don’t like friendly deer or beautiful temples, Nara has become home to a very rare fungus, only found in Central Texas, as well as two remote areas of Japan. It gets its star shape from when it releases its spores. It starts out like a cigar, then it splits open (and makes an audible hiss, aparently). Think explosive Looney Tunes cigar, Road Runner era (beep beep). If you want to have a chance to find one of these things, they seem to grow on dead oaks near streams. If you want to learn more about these things, check out the [source]. […]
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Fascinating! Nature still surprises me. Great article :)
looks like it would be fantastic sauteed in butter with just a splash of sake….
Ooh, creepy…looks like something from Alien all the way.
this is sooo cool! A fungus that actually looks beautiful! And let’s get real - they DNA tested a mushroom and compared it to OTHER fungus DNA on FILE!!!!!!!!!! Wow, now that’s really scary!