Most glowing mushrooms are found in tropical regions, but some exist in the lush forests of Switzerland as well. A bioluminescent mushroom that glows green lives in a forest in Albisrieden, a neighborhood in Zurich.
Bioluminescence is when living organisms produce light through a chemical process. Jellyfish, fireflies, fungi, and more can have the ability to generate their very own glow.
Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle observed bioluminescent fungi and described them as a “cold fire.”
Nowadays, the biological mechanism behind bioluminescence is well-understood, but its purpose is still unclear.
Some scientists believe that glowing mushrooms attract insects to spread their spores, but this theory doesn’t make sense for bioluminescence that occurs in parts of fungi that are underground.
“It seems that bioluminescence has been maintained for a long time, so we assume it has some function,” said Renate Heinzelmann, a co-author of the study and a mycologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research.
“But it’s still a mystery.”
The new mushroom was discovered by two Zurich-based artists, Heidy Baggenstos and Andreas Rudolf. They have been working with bioluminescent organisms for more than a decade.
“We want to show that these bioluminescent mushrooms are present in Swiss forests and that we do not have to travel far to find them,” Baggenstos said.
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The pair were walking through a forest one evening when they spotted some green light through their camera. Sometimes, the natural light of the fungus is so weak that it cannot be seen by the human eye and requires a camera to be visible.
They collected a few samples of the glowing specimen, thinking it was a known species called Mycena haematopus.
But when they brought it back to their brightly lit studio and examined it more closely, they realized it was another species, Mycena crocata, also known as the saffron drop bonnet mushroom.
This mushroom is known for its saffron-colored milk, but it had never been described as bioluminescent before. The artists used long-exposure photographs and a luminometer to measure the amounts of light emitted from different parts of the mushroom.
The light measurements showed that the fruiting body of M. crocata is non-luminous. The mycelium demonstrated the most bioluminescence. The mycelium is the mushroom’s underground network of filaments, similar to the roots of plants.
M. crocata grows on decaying wood. When the wood is split open, it can also emit a green glow that lasts up to four hours, which is when the wood typically dries up.
Baggenstos and Rudolf grew pure mycelia cultures in optimal conditions and found that they were able to remain bioluminescent for up to 164 days. Heinzelmann confirmed the species through a series of genetic tests.
“There will constantly be more bioluminescent species discovered,” Heinzelmann said. “Bioluminescence is under-researched, and the more people look, the more they will find.”
The study was published in Mycoscience.