Wanted: Dead Man’s Fingers

By: Joseph Cohen

August 7, 2024

Update Oct 30 2024. Samples no longer needed. Hayden Houck reports: “I’m reaching out to follow up about this request and my project. I received a lot of emails from mycologists and foragers who saw your announcement, and I’m super grateful to you for spreading the word! I have secured a couple of samples and I’ve got some happy, healthy cultures of Xylaria polymorpha growing now, so I am no longer in need of more samples. Thanks so much for all the help, you and your community are so wonderful.”

X. polymorpha is a wood-dwelling, ascomycete fungus which sometimes resembles “a creepy set of ‘dead man’s fingers.'”¹ Thus, “Dead Man’s Fingers” is one of its common names.

Xylaria polymorpha fruits in clusters or alone on, or next to decaying hardword stumps, in late spring to fall.² Unfortunately, it’s not in any of our local guidebooks.³

Hayden Houck is a masters student in the OSU Forestry Department, and more specifically, a researcher in Dr. Seri Robinson’s lab specializing in work with wood-decay fungi. Hayden is working on a research project involving X. polymorpha.

Hayden has searched around Corvallis for some fruiting bodies with no luck thus far. Hayden explains that Xylaria polymorpha does not typically fruit locally in the summer.

Hayden therefore asked that we put out the word that they are looking for samples to culture.

If you can help, please contact Hayden directly at [email protected].

— Joe Cohen

Photo credit: Copyright © 2024 Arne martinson (ArneM), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://mushroomobserver.org/553201?

1. Kuo, M. (2019, October). Xylaria polymorpha. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: https://www.mushroomexpert.com/xylaria_polymorpha.html ↩︎
2. Beug, et al., Ascomycete Fungi of North America 351 (Univ. of Texas Press 2014). ↩︎
3. Cf. Miller, Pictorial Key to Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, Flasks, Xylaria (version 2.4.1) (2022) (listing “X. atropictor n[om]. p[rov]. (X. ‘polymorpha’ grp)”); Miller, D., Danny’s DNA Discoveries, Xylaria atropictor n.p. (accessed 2024-08-07). This may imply that X. polymorpha is a species complex, and that the PNW member is X. atropictor, nom. prov. ↩︎

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