🍄⭐The June mushroom of the month is White Juniper Fungus, Robergea albicedrae
👏 Congrats to Reid Hardin @ireidaceae for guessing it right and winning a membership to the society! 🎉
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it’s not chalk, it’s not mold, it’s a lichen!
It’s a common sight in the Texas hill country, one you might have even overlooked or never thought to take much notice of - the branches of ashe juniper trees striped with a non descript, chalky white material. At first glance it looks like it could be part of the tree itself, just some variation of the bark. It’s prolific. Upon closer inspection, you may notice some small nodules, or fruiting bodies, from which spores are expelled. What you are looking at is, in fact, a lichenized fungus!
Taxonomy & Ecology
Lichens are symbionts, a symbiotic relationship between an algae and a fungus. They are classified by their fungal partner. In 1910, Heald and Wolf described this fungus species and assigned it the name Cyanospora albicedrae. The generic name Cyanospora was based on the (apparently incorrect) observation that the spores were green. The following year Saccardo and Traverso corrected this and assigned the species to the genus Robergea.
When you see this fungus in the field, look for small gray nodules on the whitened patches. These contain the fruiting bodies from which the filamentous spores
are expelled.
Juniper Friend or foe?
Since its description in 1910, many researchers have assumed that the relationship between Robergea albicedrae and its host to be parastic. However, studies of others in Stictidaceae have shown a dynamic relationship in terms of nutrient assimilation, for example, the colonization of existing dead twigs as saprotrophs, “optional lichenization,” and parasitic endophytism. More research is needed to determine the exact nature of their relationship.
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