An adventure with Omphalotus
I was wandering through the Fall woods near Ithaca, New York when I stumbled upon what looked like a delicious surprise. Growing from a stump in the middle of the woods was what appeared to be a giant bunch of delectable chanterelle mushrooms. I greedily picked the entire clump, which must have weighed at least 5 pounds. The mushrooms smelled slightly fruity and inviting, and I was excited to bring them home and fry them up. However upon closer inspection (and the observations of a trained mycologist), I realized that I had made the amateur mistake of confusing the tasty Chanterelle with the poisonous Jack O’Lantern mushroom Omphalotus illudens.1
The Jack O’Lantern is a mushroom of note in mycological circles largely for two reasons. First because of the tendency for mushroom hunting novices to mistake it for a Chanterelle (and consequently become quite sick for a day or so) and second because of the mushroom’s unusual ability to bioluminesce (glow in the dark).
The tendency for people to confuse the Chanterelle with the Jack O’Lantern is understandable because of their similar color and general appearance. Both are some shade of yellow-orange (more orange than yellow for Jack O’Lanterns), and both have decurrent gills that ease their way down the stalks. However the mistake can be quite uncomfortable as Jack O’Lanterns induce painful stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting. The symptoms pass within a day or two, but are pretty awful and most victims end up in the emergency room. Checking for several key characters can save you from confusing the two mushrooms. First, Chanterelles grow singly on the forest floor, whereas Jack O’Lanterns grow on rotting wood, usually in distinct clumps (tricky if the clump is small, or the wood is a buried root). Secondly, the gills of the Jack O’Lantern are clearly defined and have sharp, thin edges, whereas the gills on Chanterelles are blocky or fat or at least not so sharp.
The Jack O’Lantern’s ability to create luminescence is another factor which makes the mushroom interesting to mycologists (and anyone else who likes things that glow in the dark!). The specific molecules responsible for the glow of Jack O’Lanterns haven’t been characterized yet, and why a mushroom might bother to glow at all is another unanswered question. We took a long-exposure photo of my clump of mushrooms, revealing the yellow-green glow of their gills. To see the glow in real time, locate a living clump of Jack O’Lanterns, and sit with them in the woods on a dark night. Give your eyes 5 or 10 minutes to adjust (that’s how faint it is).2 Don’t rely on the glow to distinguish Jacks from Chanterelles, because it fades after the mushrooms are picked, and, as Michael Kuo can tell you, it can be hard to see.
- Jack O’Lantern poisoning is my most common mushroom poisoning call here in the Northeast. Happily, it tends to pass without any lasting effects.
- A couple of years ago, I went out at night to sit with a clump of jack o’lanterns around a stump in my neighbor’s lawn. It took about 10 minutes for my eyes to be able to make out the glow. During that time, I counted shooting stars, meditated on the answer to the ultimate question (42), and listened to night sounds. Among those sounds was a persistent shushing, coming from all around me. When I had basked long enough in the glow and switched on my flashlight, I found I was surrounded by hungry giant slugs, slithering softly through the grass as they homed in on the Jack O’Lanterns, which apparently don’t upset slug tummies at all.
Photos by Kathie Hodge (in the field) and Kent Loeffler (glow/no glow). Kent explains that the long exposure (5 minutes) needed to capture the groovy glow results in a snowy effect when using a digital camera.
It’s about time the Mushroom Blog posted some mushroom stories, eh?
Be patient with us! We’re all hungry for mushrooms around here too. There’s still snow melting in my yard.
Great photos! And what was your ultimate question that you pondered that 42 would be the answer?
Could it be: How many mycologists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Perhaps, one to screw it and the other 41 to say the hell with it and go outside in search of glowing Jack O’Lanterns 🙂
42 is the answer to the ultimate question to life, the universe, and everything. FAM and I have independently been pondering it ever since we read that exalted tome, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (see FAM’s latest post, chapter five in the Liverwort Fungus saga). As FAM pointed out, we’ve come to know that the number 42 explains many previously unexplainable things in the universe, including your insightful question about mycologists and lightbulbs.
I was very pleased to be able to find these mushrooms here on the internet. Also to see what they looked like. A friend who is a joker told me about him seeing glowing mushrroms one evening up in the wooded area of his property, I was not sure as if to believe him. I had never heard of them before. I will be able to tell him their proper name now. Brillant pictures
Welcome, Linda. Yep, your friend might not be pulling your leg. I should say, there are a couple dozen other species of glowing mushrooms around the world. In some cases, only the mycelium glows, with the result that a hunk of colonized wood becomes luminescent–foxfire, it’s called.
Hi Kathie, Just stopping by. I’m using the club to build my first site in CommonSpot. I linked your blog in it.
As much as I love the photos of the Jack O Lanterns, I think it would be instructive (especially for those of us in search of the less toxic chanterelles) if the jack o lanterns and chanterelles could be photographed side by side to clearly illustrate the difference — just a suggestion. Also, when using texture as a differentiating element, a higher definition photograph would help quite a lot. Just another suggestion.
You’re right, David, more details of the comparison between this pesky Omphalotus and the delicious chanterelles would be nice. Unfortunately, I have never personally found both jack o’lanterns and chanterelles on the same collecting trip, so I have no such photo.
I don’t suggest you use images from my blog for identification–it’s just not that kind of resource. But I appreciate your comments. It most often seems like an easy distinction, but it can be really tricky to tell them apart in some cases.
My grandfather, C.B. Moore, a Cornell graduate, apparenlty donated an extensive photo collection of mushrooms and apparently is also credited with identifying a species of Amanita that was not supposed to be present in North America. Has anybody seen the photo collection at school? Would it be accessible from the internet?
I happen to have some pics of the two species together on our website here http://www.blueoystercultivation.com/2/post/2009/09/chanterelles-and-jack-o-lanterns.html. Like Kathie, I do not recommend using the pics for a positive ID. An expert should actually give a positive ID before consumption. Of course, you could always just support your local mushroom cultivator!;p -Joe
Whenever I’m out ‘shroom hunting I always pack my mushroom identification book, it’s much better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your health. I’ve been quite tempted to go the lazy route and not research the mushroom, ‘hey it looks edible, it must be’ just doesn’t cut it.