Sarcosoma globular (Sarcosoma globosum)
Systematics:- Department: Ascomycota (Ascomycetes)
- Subdivision: Pezizomycotina (Pesizomycotins)
- Class: Pezizomycetes (Pecicomycetes)
- Subclass: Pezizomycetidae (Pecicomycetes)
- Order: Pezizales
- Family: Sarcosomataceae (Sarcosomaceae)
- Genus: Sarcosoma (Sarcosoma)
- Species: Sarcosoma globosum (Sarcosoma globular)
Globular sarcosoma is an amazing mushroom of the sarcosomaceae family. It is an ascomycete fungus.
Likes to grow in conifers, especially preferring pine forests and spruce forests, among mosses, in the litter of needles. Saprophyte.
The season is early spring, late April - late May, after the snow melts. Appearance time - earlier than lines and morels. The fruiting period is up to one and a half months. Found in the forests of Europe, on the territory of our country (Moscow region, Leningrad region, as well as Siberia). Experts note that spherical sarcosoma does not grow every year (they even call numbers - once every 8-10 years). But experts in mushroom pickers from Siberia claim that sarcosomes grow annually in their area (depending on weather conditions, sometimes more or less).
Globular sarcosoma grows in groups, mushrooms often "hide" in the grass. Sometimes fruiting bodies can grow together with each other in two or three copies.
Fruit body (apothecia) without stem. It has the shape of a ball, then the body takes the form of a cone or barrel. Sack-like, pleasant to the touch, velvety. Young mushrooms have a smooth skin, more mature - wrinkled. Color - dark brown, brownish brown, may be darker at the base.
There is a leathery disc, which, like a lid, covers the gelatinous contents of the sarcosoma.
It belongs to inedible mushrooms, although in a number of regions of our country it is eaten (fried). Its oil has long been used in folk medicine. Decoctions, ointments are made from it, they are drunk raw - some for rejuvenation, some for hair growth, and some just use it as a cosmetic product.
A rare mushroom listed in the Red Book of some regions of Russia.