Bern/Karlsruhe (dpa/lsw) - Surprising find during a midday walk: A Swiss researcher came across a new type of mushroom - as it turned out later, it is even said to be a completely new genus. A mushroom expert from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) made the discovery in 2018, practically on his doorstep: on a spruce tree in the garden of the research institute, he discovered small grey-beige cups and thus the unknown fungus. As the institute announced on Wednesday, it has now been found at around 130 sites, on forest pastures and in mountain forests in the Jura, the Alps and also in the Black Forest.
The researchers named the species Microstrobilinia castrans and have now presented it in the journal Mycological Progress. The species name castrans indicates the way the fungus lives: it decomposes the tissue of the male spruce blossom and thus reaches the nutritious pollen. The parasite destroys the male flowers. The researchers want to keep an eye on Microstrobilinia castrans, but do not currently see any danger for the spruces, since the fungus only affects a few blossoms on a tree.
The experts do not rule out that the fungus was brought in with park trees at some point. In the last 200 years, mushrooms have been searched for so eagerly in Europe that such a conspicuous cupcake would hardly have gone unnoticed, it is said.
