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I have wasted at least three hours of my life in this endeavor, over the years. Three hours! Every time I collect Omphalotus illudens, I think to myself: "These are fresh specimens; surely this time I'll see it." Then I seclude myself in darkness and hover, waiting . . . and waiting, and waiting. This last time, after nearly half an hour, I finally began to see the gills glow in the dark, an eerie green color--until I held my hand over my eyes and noticed that the glowing gills were still there.
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I am here to tell you: The emperor is naked! Don't make a fool of yourself, as I regularly do. After years of trying to see the luminescent gills I have reached the obvious conclusion: mushroom authors are out to make me feel like an idiot. And don't bother sending an e-mail to tell me you have seen the Jack O'Lantern's glowing gills, or to send a photo of the phenomenon, because I will know you are part of the conspiracy, and that the photo was produced by the same people who made the photos of the Loch Ness Monster.

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implee said:
Saw this article... Looks interesting.

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/08/rare-devils-cigar-fungus-discovered-in-nara/

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/culture/academic/080726/acd0807260002000-n1.htm
http://www.sas.org/E-Bulletin/2004-01-16/mimsci/body.html
http://smt.blogs.com/mari_diary/2008/07/morinaga-got-th.html

Article


One of the world’s rarest fungi, an exotic star-shaped mushroom known to exist at only three locations on Earth, has been discovered in the mountains of Nara prefecture.

The Devil’s Cigar (a.k.a. “Texas Star”) — known to botanists as Chorioactis geaster — had been observed only in central Texas and at two remote locations in Japan prior to the recent discovery in Nara. The peculiar fungus is described as a dark brown cigar-shaped capsule that transforms into a tan-colored star when it splits open to release its spores. It is also one of only a few known fungi that produce an audible hiss when releasing spores.

First reported in 1893 in Austin, Texas, the curious mushroom appears in a limited area of central Texas each year, and until now, the rare sightings in Japan have occurred in forests in Miyazaki and Kochi prefectures. The fungus is included on the red list of threatened plants published by Japan’s Environment Ministry.

The recent Nara discovery was made by Masakuni Kimura, curator of a natural history museum in the town of Kawakami (Nara prefecture). Kimura first encountered Devil’s Cigars in October 2006 while surveying a forest near Kawakami, where he found 12 of them growing from a dead oak tree next to a mountain stream at an elevation of 470 meters (about 1,550 ft). Nearly a year later, in September 2007, he discovered four more of the mushrooms when he returned to the site with Shuichi Kurogi, curator of the Miyazaki Prefectural Museum of Nature and History. Their findings were presented at a recent meeting of the Mycological Society of Japan.

The site of the Nara discovery, like the previous Miyazaki and Kochi sites, is located in a humid forest. At all three sites, the Devil’s Cigars were observed growing on dead oak trees near a stream.

In central Texas (which is located at approximately the same latitude as southern Japan), the rare fungus appears during fall and winter, growing from the stumps and dead roots of cedar elm trees.

Tsuyoshi Hosoya, head botanist at Japan’s National Science Museum, says, “The DNA of the Devil’s Cigar from Miyazaki is consistent with the one from Texas. They are regarded as the same species.”

While it is unknown how this exceedingly rare mushroom came to appear only in Japan and central Texas, one intriguing theory suggests that spores from Japan were swept up in an Asian dust cloud and carried across the globe.

[Sources: Sankei, SAS via Watashi to Tokyo]

See also: Rainy season brings glow-in-the-dark mushrooms

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ToxicMan said:
The upper photo in your post shows one that hasn't yet opened. The entire puffball like thing opens up by splitting along several lines to form a star shape.

There are several species of Geastrum around, many of them very common. The group of mushrooms like these are referred to as earthstars.

Happy mushrooming!

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ohhh well damn thought i had a rare find. all i could find was a few dry curled up ones

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Alan Rockefeller said:
Most ascomycetes hiss when they release lots of spores at once. 

Sarcosphaera coronaria is easy to get to hiss, morels hiss sometimes, peziza too.

The best way to get them to hiss is to blow on them.  Then you see a white cloud come off them and it sounds like the ocean if you put it right up to your ear.

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