Enteridium lycoperdon
Description
Enteridium lycoperdon (syn. Reticularia lycoperdon) is one of the more obvious species of slime mold or Myxogastria, typically seen in its reproductive phase as a white 'swelling' on standing dead trees in the spring, or on large pieces of fallen wood. Alder (Alnus glutinosa) is a common host. It starts off as a white globular mass about the size of half a golf ball, and then develops a silver-gray papery skin beneath which the brown spores develop. When the seeds have been dispersed all they leave behind is a faint brown 'spore print' patch on the tree bark.
E. lycoperdon is named "caca de luna" or "Moon's excrement" by the locals in the state of Veracruz in Mexico.
Common names: False Puffball.
Enteridium lycoperdon Edibility
Ultimate Mushroom does not recommend eating this mushroom.
For consumption of E. lycoperdon, the residents in San Lorenzo Tlacoyucan usually pick up full fruiting bodies (reproductive structures) from the substrate with a razor or knife. On a leaf of maize (Zea mays L.) or aluminium, the fruiting bodies are mixed with salt and “epazote” leaves (Chenopodium ambrosioides L.), and wrapped to make a small packet, which is heated in hot campfire or bonfire ashes on the ground.
The cooking time in hot ashes ranges between 20 and 40 minutes. After cooking, the fruiting bodies of E. lycoperdon changes to be viscous with elastic consistency, which is very similar to a type of cheese consumed in Mexico, called the “hebra” or “oaxaca”.
The taste is like almonds and mushrooms.
People usually consume the cooked Myxomycetes with corn tortillas or eat them alone. The residents from this community recommend direct consumption, on the site where it is cooked, because transport may change the consistency of cooked E. lycoperdon. During transport, the cooked material can undergo a liquefaction process. In this case, the immature state of fruiting bodies reverts to plasmodium condition and is not attractive for consumption.
Life Cycle
Sporangial phase with glutinous contents
The slime mould has two phases to its life cycle: an actively feeding plasmodial stage and a reproductive sporangial stage.
The plasmodial phase is mobile and is multi-nucleate, formed by the fusion of single cells and typically amoeboid in its movements, through cytoplasmic streaming.
The sporangial or aethalial phase of this slime mold is spherical, elongate, or globular, 50 to 80 mm, and is at first highly glutinous in appearance, resembling small slug eggs. Later a smooth white and silvery surface develops, which eventually splits to expose a brown spore mass beneath. An aethalium is a term relating to slime molds, referring to the relatively big, plump, pillow-shaped fruiting body, formed by the aggregation of plasmodia into a single functional body. The term comes from the Greek for thick smoke or soot; so named from the smokelike spores.
Enteridium lycoperdon Spores
The spores are brown, subglobose or ovoid, punctate (spotted), 5–7 µm in size, and dispersed by wind and rain until only a few delicate threads of the sporangium remain, resembling soft foam padding.
Enteridium lycoperdon Insect Associates
A slime mold fly, Epicypta testata, is known to lay its eggs within the spore mass and puparia can be seen with their tips protruding. The adult fly lays its eggs within the plasmodial phase, feeding upon it. The larval phase then hatches as worm-like larvae that pupate and then hatch, carrying and dispersing some of the spores which have stuck to them.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Alan Rockefeller (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 2 - Author: Katie McCoy (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Stas000D (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 4 - Author: Michel Langeveld (CC BY-SA 4.0)
