Witches' Cauldron
Witches' Cauldron EN (endangered) Sarcosoma globosum
May we offer you a chocolate truffle?
The Pig’s Ear Fungus is a cup fungus; its fruiting bodies have a chocolate-brown, matte, velvety exterior. On the upper surface of the fruiting body there is a dark brown glossy disc. It is filled with a jelly-like liquid and feels quite heavy. The fruiting body is approximately 5-10 centimetres wide.
The Pig’s Ear Fungus begins forming its fruiting bodies while still under the snow, so we can spot it immediately after the snow melts.
The Pig’s Ear Fungus thrives in nutrient-rich spruce forest where spruce has been present continuously for a long time. Its way of life is unknown; it is unclear whether it is a saprotrophic fungus that lives by decomposing spruce needle litter or a fungus that forms mykorrhiza with spruce. It does not survive clear-cutting.
Sweden has the most sites with Pig’s Ear Fungus in the entire world today, and this carries a great responsibility to preserve and protect the forests where it grows.
Text by Thomas Tidholm
We could rustle with the trees. We could whisper with the ferns.
We could murmur with the fungi.
That was a very long time ago, and we were different then. We resembled the fungi more than we do today, we were perhaps something like jelly, small and sticky, but we were on our way up. It just was not time yet.
The forests dripped with moisture, heavy clouds lay over the landscape, everything was dense and concentrated.
Since then much has happened. We humans have transformed; we have feet, and more. We can run to the bus. We have media.
But the fungi still have mycorrhiza, a world-spanning underground network. The internet is nothing.