This is Neonothopanus gardneri. IMAGE/Cassius V. Stevani/IQ-USP, Brazil
In 1840, renowned English botanist George Gardner reported a strange sight from the streets of Vila de Natividade in Brazil: A group of boys playing with a glowing object that turned out to be a luminescent mushroom. They called it “flor-de-coco,” and showed Gardner where it grew on decaying fronds at the base of a dwarf palm. Gardner sent the mushroom to the Kew Herbarium in England where it was described and named Agaricus gardneri in honor of its discoverer. The species was not seen again until 2009.
San Francisco State University researcher Dennis Desjardin and colleagues have now collected new specimens of this forgotten mushroom and reclassified it as, Neonothopanus gardneri. Findings are now online and scheduled to be published in the November/December print issue of Mycologia.
They hope that careful study of the Brazilian mushroom—which shines brightly enough to read by–and its other bioluminescent cousins around the world will help answer the question of how and why some fungi glow.
Physorg for more