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Mushrooms, Mycology and Psychedelics > Mushroom Hunting and Identification
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Glowing Medicine.
    #5487951 -

Edit: The location of interest is South Dakota, not North Dakota.

Edit: Foxfire added.

One of my professors is writing a book about the Lakota medicine man Black Elk. He mentioned that Black Elk used a medicine which could only be found by going up a hill on a moonless night and watching for its glow. The glowing medicine was used to produce mysterious flashes of light during a Yuwipi ceremony.



I immediately thought bioluminescent mushrooms, and I offered to help him figure out what the medicine might be.
I decided to reply here so that others could contribute.


The obvious first candidate is Omphalotus olearius, the Jack O' Lantern.

                 
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/omphalotus_illudens.html

However, these don't seem a good match to the shaman's story of collecting the medicine, because they are so large and distinctive that once someone found them at night, they could easily be recognized during the day. 

A more likely candidate is Panellus stipticus, the Luminescent Panellus.
                       
http://www.pbase.com/trichs/image/50329101

Panellus stipticus is much smaller and has many look-a-likes. The intensity of bioluminescence seems to vary quite a bit from colony to colony, and some collections are reported not to glow at all. This seems a closer match to Black Elk's medicine. They would be difficult to differentiate from the countless other oyster-like wood rotters, and it would be impossible to distinguish between the glowing and non glowing varieties during the day.

A glowing variety of the mushroom can be bought for home cultivation at Spore Works.
http://www.sporeworks.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16144

SporeWorks mentions that the intensity of the glow is quite strong in the immature mushrooms, and that it is oxygen dependent. Perhaps a Yuwipi practitioner could conceal a pin in leather, and then expose it to the air to produce a quick flash of light.

I believe that Panellus stipticus is wide spread and native to North Dakota, but have yet to find a link... Maybe somebody can verify yea or nay if Panellus stipticus lives in Sorth Dakota.


Edit: Thanks to ToxicMan for pointing out another species of glowing fungus.

Armillaria mellea (Honey Mushroom) : Foxfire.
                                           
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/armillaria_mellea.html

The mushrooms of this species complex do not glow, but the mycelium renders the wood they grow from luminescent.

http://www.buckeyeforestcouncil.org/mj/Winter1999/Articles/mj13foxf.html

Armillaria mellea (actually a species complex), the Honey Mushroom, is one of the most common and most prolific mushrooms of North America. In fact the largest and oldest living thing in the world is a Honey Mushroom colony.
http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Apr2005/pdf/Apr2005p04-09.pdf

I think Honey Mushroom mycelium is another good candidate for Black Elk's glowing medicine. It is very common and could be found year round, even when the mushrooms are not fruiting, and, unlike Jack O' Lanterns and Luminescent Panellus, Foxfire could only be found at night.


If you can think of any other species that might fit the description, please post them.

Peace, love, and shroomyness.  :smile: :heart: :mushroom2:

Edited by shroomydan (04/08/06 02:37 PM)

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5487974 -

cool

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: CptnGarden]
    #5488036 -

wow, thanks for sharing that with us

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5488100 -

Another mushroom that commonly produces phosphorescence is Armillaria mellea (and probably all of the Armillarias). The mushrooms themselves do not glow, but wood they are rotting will sometimes glow very brightly. It is also known as foxfire.

ivi has a point. Probably the most common glowing things in North America are insects.

Either way it's an interesting area to speculate in.

Happy mushrooming!


--------------------
Happy mushrooming!

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: ToxicMan]
    #5488829 -

So how did it produce light? Grind the mushrooms up and slap em in a jar? I dont get it.


--------------------
God.......fly agarics rule. liberty caps are shit. kratom, i havent tried. And the rest.....

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5488883 -

My only experience with glowing mushrooms was the first time I got drunk when I was 16. I was very much a member here (before the 18+ policy) so I knew about glowing mushrooms. I found some glowing mycelium in my drunken madness. My best guess is that it was honey mushrooms. I put a piece of the glowing mycelium in my wallet just to find a peice of bark in my wallet the next morning. That's my story about glowing mushrooms :smile:

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: ukflyman]
    #5489685 -

ukflyman said:
So how did it produce light? Grind the mushrooms up and slap em in a jar? I dont get it.


Quote:
Bioluminescence refers to light produced by a chemical reaction within an organism. This occurs when the pigment lucifern (lucifer means "light-bringing" in Latin) reacts with the enzyme luciferase, ATP (adenocyne triphosphate) and oxygen to create light. All of this happens with very little heat radiation.


http://www.buckeyeforestcouncil.org/mj/Winter1999/Articles/mj13foxf.html

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5493254 -

I found this article.

Gabel, A., *E. Ebbert and *K. Lovett. 2004. Macrofungi Collected from the Black Hills of South Dakota and Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming. American Midland Naturalist 152:43-62.
http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=...BH%5D2.0.CO%3B2

Quote:
USDA Forest Service Technical Reports R2-49, R2-50 and R2-51 show the distribution of Armillaria root disease


Armillaria root disease is caused by honey mushrooms.
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/armillaria/armillaria.htm

The species list:
http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=display-figures&name=i0003-0031-152-1-43-t301

Dr. Gabel collected Armillaria ostoyae (one of the Honey Mushrooms), but the other two candidates Omphalotus olearius and Panellus stipticus are missing from the list.

It seems highly likely that Black Elk's glowing medicine was myclylium from Honey Mushrooms known as Foxfire.

Of course as noted by ivi and ToxicMan, it may have been an insect.




Dr. Gable has also published several books.

Quote:
Gabel, A. and E. Ebbert. 2004. Mushrooms and Other Fungi of the Black Hills and Surrounding Area. Black Hills State University Press, Spearfish SD. 164 pp.



http://newton.bhsu.edu/biology/audreygabel.htm

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5494094 -

I remember when I was a kid at boy scout camp in Kansas, there was something on the trees that you couldn't see in the day, but at night the trunks glowed. I've also found bioluminescent stuff in the dirt before, but don't know what that was...

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5495403 -

Pretty interesting stuff to think about. Nice post :wink:


--------------------
Immortal / Temporarily Retired
The OG Thread Killer
My mushroom hunting gallery

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5499934 -

My friend sent this to me in an email:

Quote:
One
snippet said "insect"--if the person was suggesting this is what BE (Black Elk) saw,
then the answer is no. His daughter said it was a "plant" that glowed
(plant open for interpretation).


I found this great site about bioluminescense.
http://www.shoarns.com/Luminous.html

It mentions that some mosses may be bioluminescent, but from my understanding there are no higher plants that are bioluminescent. There is one story about glowing leaves, but the story says that only fallen leaves were glowing and not the ones still connected to the tree, so I suspect the fallen leaves were glowing due to fungal infestation. There are bacteria, algae, insects, fish, crustations, mollusks, and fungi, and maybe moss (some say the moss is only reflective), but no birds, mamals or higher plants, though some plants have been genetically engineered to glow in the dark. Supposedly, someone has engineered a bioluminescent pumpkin.
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Bioluminescent_20Pumpkins

Of all the glowing organisms that might be found in a woodland habitat (insects excluded), it seems fungi would be the most common. And the glowing fungi most likely to be found in the Black Hills would be Armillaria ostoyae, as reported by Dr. Gabel. Armillaria ostoyae is one of the Honey Mushrooms.

Taxonomy on the genus Armillaria is a tangled mess at the moment, and this may lead to some confusion. Not long ago, the Latin binomial Armillaria mellea referred to all Honey Mushrooms, but the last I checked, A. mellea had been split into ten species, and it is likely more splits are forthcoming. Tom Volk has done much work with the Honey Mushrooms, and those interested can read about it here.
http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/arm.html

Suffice it to say that any member of the genus Armillaria can be called "Honey Mushroom", and presumably all members of the genera produce bioluminescent mycelium (Fox Fire), though this last statement probably has never been verified considering the novelty of the species split. When Dr. Gabel reported finding Armillaria ostoyae in the Black Hills, he verified that Honey Mushrooms grow there.

Because the mycelial mat of a single Armillaria organism can cover many square miles, and because these organisms have been found in the Black Hills, and because the other known biolumencent species were not found there during Dr. Gabel's five-year study, Foxfire from a piece of wood infested with the Honey Mushroom Armillaria ostoyae seems the most likely candidate for Black Elk's glowing "plant".

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroomydan]
    #5500059 -

And what of the medicinal properties?


--------------------
It's easy! Send your clean prints to www.fsrcanada.com

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: Andrew47]
    #5525471 -

The Lakota are part of the Sioux who were highly mobile (nomadic) following food sources.....commonly on the move many hundreds of miles at a time......which means you would not have to limit the availability of a Panellus stipticus for instance to just South Dakota neccesarilly......especially with this mushrooms reported ability to resume its glowing process after being dried then rehydrated (potentially preserved and transported).......and as noted below as with any nomadic peoples they would aquire medicinals, etc. over great ranges of distance during their travels,,,,,and I think its possible that Black Elk was using his example of locating this "medicine" in darkness as a way of conveying to the interviewer or anyone a means of locating it themselves for the first time possibly......not neccessarilly that he had to do this each time to identify it unless the more difficult to locate during the day foxfire.......and it could be that hunting in dark could also insure only the brightest glowing (more powerful ?) populations of Panellus as they do seem to vary even to no glow in British populations (see link below).......especially if dehydrating reduces the intensity.......Im sure only strains that are the "brightest" performers are what are made available in todays commercial market for growing purposes.........and of course Panellus might have more potential as medicinal from traditional use as astringent/ styptic (hence the species name) for the control of bleeding of wounds and injuries especially for people hunting large game over very long distances all on foot.....and it glows to boot (could be quite a show at night with those abilities).....the common occuring herb Achillea (both Old World and New World genus) has quite an important place in history as a styptic as you probably know.........Panellus stipticus is fairly common in U.S. and documented across the north from New York to Washington state, down through Missourri, etc.
Ironically probably the most universally used styptic among native americans was a fungus........Puffballs!................The Pond Lilly Nuphar lutea ssp. polysepala is a documented styptic used by the Sioux.



Quote :
".......................Medicine Rocks was also a place where tribal members stopped on the way from the Yellowstone River Valley to the Black Hills in summer and early fall. Among the attractions were MEDICINAL PLANTS,............................"

".......................... told him stories of the SIOUX and Northern Cheyenne tribes using Medicine Rocks as a sacred site. ?I?ve heard the stories ever since I was a kid,? he says. ?Medicine Rocks is considered sacred ground.?

Sioux Medicine Rocks link:
http://fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/HTML/articles/2005/medicinerocks.htm

Quote :
"The photograph above shows the fruiting bodies of Panellus stipticus. After drying out, the mushrooms stop glowing, however when they are re-moistened they become luminescent again."

here is the link for that quote:
http://www.bioart.co.uk/lux/panellus.html


--------------------
Worlds Largest 'Liberty Cap' (Cali Libs Confirmed !)
' Comments On Hallucinogenic Agarics And The Hallucinations Of Those Who Study Them '
Alexander H. Smith
Mycologia vol.69 1977

Edited by shroominDole (07/14/06 08:12 PM)

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Re: Glowing Medicine. [Re: shroominDole]
    #5527634 -

speaking of glowing, here is a link from a web site partially maintained by a shroomery member.
http://www.nerdshit.com/wordpress/?p=2010

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