Sighting 4204039
Cannon-ball Fungus at suppressed
Identification history
| Sphaerobolus stellatus | 21 Mar 2019 | Pam | ||
| Sphaerobolus stellatus | 19 Mar 2019 | Teresa |
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User's notes
The Cannon-ball Fungus is a tiny 1.5mm fruit body found in gregarious groups on decaying wood, bark and sometimes on herbivore dung. In this case it was on decaying wood.
It is a powerful little fungus able to shoot out its cannon-ball (an egg-shaped peridiole with a mass of spores inside) away from the parent for long distances, upto 6mt or more, onto a new substrate.
When this fungus matures, it opens in a starlike manner to reveal a ball of spores sitting in a cup. Osmotic pressure builds up below the ball until it is suddenly released and the cup inverts (turns inside out) explosively and the spore ball is shot away. It is very sticky, so can adhere to any vegetation or other obstacles in its flight path.
2 comments
Pam
wrote:
21 Mar 2019
Always exciting to find this little one. Your ones seems to be coming up as a dark 'blister' whereas the ones I see up this way mature as a pale 'blister'! Maybe it's just the photography showing different detail?
Sighting information
- 101 - 1,000 Abundance
- 19 Mar 2019 09:41 AM Recorded on
- Teresa Recorded by
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Species information
- Sphaerobolus stellatus Scientific name
- Cannon-ball Fungus Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Local native
- Non-Invasive
- Machine learning
Record quality
- Images or audio
- More than one media file
- Confirmed by an expert moderator
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
- GPS evidence of location
- Description
- Additional attributes
