The jack o'lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius) is a poisonous orange mushroom that glows in the dark. We've found it twice in the last two weeks -- perfect for the lead up to Halloween!
But the truly cool thing about these mushrooms is that the gills glow in the dark. You need absolute darkness to see it, and they need to be in their prime (one source recommends wrapping them in moist paper towels to bring home).
Just don't go trick-or-treating on these beauties. They may look and smell great, but they'll make you really, really sick.
In the wild: We've found these mushrooms twice in Rock Creek Park (once on Oregon Avenue and once by Boundary Bridge), and also in Scott's Run.
5 comments:
That is so cool.
Isn't it? MAW had a speaker a while back whose hobby was photographing glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. AMAZING slides. (and they were really slides...it had been a long-term hobby!)
I'm surprised that on a naturalist blog you are advocating removing a species from a park.
"...one source recommends wrapping them in moist paper towels to bring home..."
It always bears repeating that it's illegal to remove ANYTHING from Rock Creek Park or other parks run by the NPS. However, we often find mushrooms in people's yards and other public places that are fair game. In general, you don't harm mushrooms by removing their fruiting bodies -- as long as you're careful to cut them neatly at the bottom of the stalk and leave behind the mycelium that they're growing from, they'll continue to grow and fruit. On a large mass like the one pictured above we might take a couple home to look at and leave the rest behind to drop their spores.
Wow, bright orange and glow-in-the -dark mushrooms, those are very cool. Too many of us ignore fungi and they have some very interesting things going on.
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