Inside The New York Botanical Garden
mycology
Posted in Science on October 9 2012, by Roy Halling
This is an image of a mushroom that I have never seen on the NYBG campus as long as I’ve been here (around 28 years) and I am 99.9% sure it has never before been reported here.
There are several unrelated genera of mushrooms that seem to prefer growing on wood chip mulch as a substrate and seemingly have a global distribution. Right now after the recent rains, the mushrooms that favor this artificial habitat are in nearly every flower bed on campus.
The name of the mushroom is Leratiomyces ceres, described for the first time from Australia in 1888.
Roy E. Halling, PhD is the Curator of Mycology at the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden.
Posted in From the Field on March 16 2012, by Matt Newman
Dr. Roy Halling’s jet-setting ways are, while enviable, a product of necessity–the world’s most outlandish fungi won’t scribble themselves into the mycological register. But while his travels across the globe often carry him to dim conifer forests, sweltering jungles, and likely the grimiest reaches of the most foetid swamps, it was in a far less feral environment that Roy found his latest winning specimen.
While visiting Australia, Dr. Halling–the NYBG‘s resident Curator of Mycology–came upon a rather strange customer (though delightful to any mushroom fanatic) growing in a friend’s suburban Brisbane garden. It’s not altogether uncommon down under. However, seeing something so visibly sinister popping up alongside your vegetables here in the northeastern United States could be cause for confusion, alarm, fascination, or cries of impending apocalypse in the vein of Chicken Little. It’s just that odd-looking.
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