16 August 2010

A scene from Rio de Janeiro

But those aren't beach umbrellas - they are "the striped caps of Marasmius" (mushrooms from the Urubu River near Rio).  The name has an interesting etymology:
The author of the genus was Elias Magnus Fries, who in 1838 classified white-spored agarics having a tough central stipe in this taxon if they were marcescent, i.e. they could dry out, but later revive when moistened. For Fries, marcescence (by contrast with the "putrescent" (decomposing) nature of most mushrooms) was an important character for classification, which he used to separate this group from genus Collybia (which has now been split into many newer genera). The name Marasmius itself comes from a Greek word marasmos, meaning drying out. Modern mycologists no longer consider the marcescence/putrescence distinction a reliable criterion for taxonomy, but Fries's definition of the genus is still roughly applicable.
Photo credit artour_a, via Electric Orchids.

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