Violet Coral
It’s Mushroom Monday and, as we’ve seen already this season, PEI’s fungi come in a variety of colours and shapes. This week, we have another species that is neither ‘mushroom brown’ nor stereotypically cap-and-stem shaped: meet the lovely Violet Coral (Clavaria amethystina complex).
I’m fascinated by colourful fungi. Biologists have long studied colouration in plants and animals, which has given us a pretty good handle on the roles of their various pigments and patterns. But the same isn’t true for fungi. While we do know that some colourful fungal compounds provide protection from sunlight and others defend against competing fungi or harmful microbes, the chemistry and purpose of many – including what makes Violet Coral purple – remains a mystery.
Despite its bright colour and distinctive appearance, Violet Coral has only been recorded in about a dozen locations on the Island and so it may not be all that common. (For comparison, another colourful coral fungus – Golden Spindles – has far more sightings). I found this Violet Coral under mixed hardwood forests on land that was never farmed: a habitat much less common now than it once was. Violet Coral is one of our decomposers, providing the essential service of breaking down dead organic matter into forms that can be re-used by other fungi, plants, and animals.
Coral Fungi generally, and Violet Coral specifically, are good examples of how our understanding of biodiversity has evolved. In the mid-18th century, biologist Carl Linnaeus developed a system for classifying and naming living things, and he grouped all the fungi that resembled clubs and coral, including Violet Coral, into a single genus.
A century later, the increasing availability of microscopes allowed biologists to look more closely and see significant differences among these fungi, many of which then got separated and reclassified. Today, we can go even further and look at a fungus’ DNA to see which other fungi it is related to. As a result of new information from genetic sequencing, the naming of Violet Corals is in flux, and I’ll just call this one ‘Clavaria amethystina complex’ until the experts decide how to sort things out.
Regardless of name or genetics, Violet Coral is a strikingly beautiful part of PEI Untamed!
