Extremely rare fungus found on Gotland

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Published 17 September 2021 at 09.03

Domestic. An extremely rare fungus has been sighted on Gotland this year. It has only existed in three places before in Sweden and the last time it was on Gotland was almost 120 years ago.

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It was on the evening of 19 August this year that Dennis Nyström passed a tree in Linde on Gotland and saw something he had not seen before.

On an area of ​​around 4 square decimetres blew something out of the bark of the apple.

– Directly in the field, I suspected that it could be apple tagging, Sarcodontia crocea. A species that has been looked at in the literature and read about, but which felt completely unthinkable to find, says Dennis Nyström, nature conservation officer at the County Administrative Board, in a press release.

But then you can never be sure of such rare fungal findings , a collection of the fungus was sent to an expert within the species group, Karl-Henrik Larsson, to have the finding confirmed microscopically.

– After about a week, I received a response, and he confirmed my suspicion – it was an appeal . The species is extremely rare in Sweden and has previously only been found on three sites in Sweden, says Dennis Nyström.

The previous finds have been made on Öland, in Blekinge and an old site on Gotland.

< The species is probably overlooked as it is only found in Sweden on older apple trees, which usually grow in private villa gardens, park environments and in wasteland and may thus have passed mycologists, says Dennis Nyström.

Latest find in Sweden was in Blekinge in 2016 and on Gotland it was last seen in 1902. The species is red-listed as acutely endangered on the Swedish red list.

– I have looked at that apple hundreds of times without seeing any of it previous years and so this year it suddenly appeared. Like many other rare and exclusive mushrooms, it has probably waited for optimal conditions to form fruit bodies, says Dennis Nyström.