Microstoma extended (Microstoma protractum) photo and description

Microstoma extended (Microstoma protractum)

Microstoma elongated is one of those mushrooms that cannot be mistaken with the definition. There is only one small problem: to find this beauty, you will have to move through the forest literally on all fours.

Mushroom in shape is most similar to a flower. An apothecia develops on a whitish stem, at first spherical, then elongated, ovoid, red in color, with a small hole at the top, and it looks so much like a flower bud! Then this “bud” bursts, turning into a goblet “flower” with a well-defined jagged edge.

The outer surface of the “flower” is covered with the finest translucent whitish hairs, the most dense at the border of the stem and apothecia.

The inner surface is bright red, scarlet, smooth. With age, the blades of the “flower” open up more and more, acquiring no longer a goblet, but a saucer-shaped shape.

Dimensions:

Cup diameter up to 2,5 cm

Leg height up to 4 cm, leg thickness up to 5 mm

Season: different sources indicate slightly different times (for the northern hemisphere). April – first half of June is indicated; spring – early summer; there is a mention that the mushroom can be found in the very early spring, literally at the first snowmelt. But all sources agree on one thing: this is a fairly early mushroom.

Ecology: It grows on branches of coniferous and deciduous species immersed in the soil. It occurs in small groups in coniferous and mixed, less often in deciduous forests throughout the European part, beyond the Urals, in Siberia.

Edibility: No data.

Similar species: Microstoma floccosum, but it is much more “hairy”. Sarcoscypha occidentalis is also small and red, but it has a completely different shape, not goblet, but cupped.

Photo: Alexander, Andrey.