Pine Geopora (Geopora arenicola)
Systematics:
- Department: Ascomycota (Ascomycetes)
- Species: Geopora arenicola (Geopora pine)
Synonyms:
-
Sepultaria pine
- Sepultaria arenicola
- Lachnea arenicola
- Peziza arenicola
- Sarcoscypha arenicola
- Lachnea arenicola
Like many geopores, Geopora arenicola spends most of its life underground, where fruiting bodies are formed. Distributed in the southern regions, the growth and maturation of the fruit body occurs in the winter. It is considered a rather unusual European mushroom.
External description
The fruit body is small, 1-3, rarely up to 5 centimeters in diameter. At the stage of maturation, under the ground – spherical. When ripe, it comes to the surface, in the upper part there is a hole with ragged edges, resembling a small insect hole. Then it breaks apart in the form of a star of irregular shape, while remaining voluminous, does not flatten to a saucer shape.
The inner surface is light, light cream, cream or yellowish gray.
The outer surface is much darker, brownish, covered with hairs and grains of sand adhered to them. The hairs are thick-walled, brown, with bridges.
Leg: absent.
Pulp: light, whitish or grayish, brittle, without much taste or smell.
Hymenium is located on the inside of the fruiting body. Bags are 8-spore, cylindrical. Ellipsoidal spores, 23–3514–18 µm, with one or two drops of oil.
Spread
It grows in pine forests, on sandy soils, in mosses and in crevices, in groups, in January-February (Crimea).
Edibility
Inedible.
Similar types and differences from them
It looks like a smaller sandy Geopora, from which it differs in larger spores. It also resembles similarly colored pets, from which it differs by the hairy outer surface and ragged, 'star-shaped' edge, while the pets are relatively flat or wavy. When the geo-pores of the edges begin to turn outward in an adult fruiting body, from a distance the mushroom can be mistaken for a small representative of the Zvezdovikov family, but upon closer inspection everything will fall into place.
