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Mushroom Monday: Crown-tipped Coral (Artomyces pyxidatus)
Today’s Mushroom Monday mushroom is the Crown-tipped Coral (Artomyces pyxidatus). It looks different from many of the other mushrooms we’ve featured before and is an interesting mushroom to learn about.
Crown-tipped coral mushrooms grow from a small base. They come from the same point and can have many slim branches with tips that look like crowns. They can also have branches that grow from other branches. The mushroom size is around 1.5 to 5 inches tall and a little more than three quarters of an inch to close to four inches across including all the branches. Generally, it resembles ocean coral in appearance.
The base can vary in color from white to pinkish to brownish and has fine hairs. The branches have a white/yellow color. The branches are thin and smooth. Over time, they can become slightly tan with some pink colors. The tips have the same color as the branches and can become brown over time. The flesh is white, tough, and bendable.
The crowns at the end of branches look like small cups with between three and six points around them.
Crown-tipped coral mushrooms are saprophytic mushrooms that grow from wood (unlike similar looking mushrooms that grow from soil) and can particularly be found growing from dead hardwoods. They can be found in groups or alone and can be found in North America with the exception of the west coast, where they may not be present or where they may be rare.
Artomyces pyxidatus used to be called Clavicorona pyxidata.
If you liked learning about crown-tipped coral (Artomyces pyxidatus) mushrooms, check out our other Mushroom Monday posts on our TrueTreeTalk blog. We’ve looked at two coral-type mushrooms before, the coral tooth fungus and the common club coral. Follow us on Facebook to keep up with these and other posts.
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