''Omphalotus japonicus'', commonly known as the tsukiyotake , is an orange to brown-colored gilled

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is t ...

native to Japan and Eastern Asia. It is a member of the

cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

genus ''

Omphalotus ''Omphalotus'' is a genus of basidiomycete mushroom, in the family Marasmiaceae, formally circumscribed by Victor Fayod in 1889. Members have the traditional cap and stem structure. They are saprobic, and fruit in clumps on the ground, adjace ...

'', the members of which have

bioluminescent Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by living organisms. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some Fungus, fungi, microorganisms including ...

fruit bodies which glow in darkness. A 2004

molecular A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioche ...

study shows it to be most closely related to a

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

composed of ''

Omphalotus nidiformis ''Omphalotus nidiformis'', or ghost fungus, is a gilled basidiomycete mushroom most notable for its bioluminescent properties. It is known to be found primarily in southern Australia and Tasmania, but was reported from India in 2012 and 2018. T ...

'' of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, ''

Omphalotus olivascens ''Omphalotus olivascens'', commonly known as the western jack-o'-lantern mushroom, is an orange to brown-colored gilled mushroom native to California and Mexico. Taxonomy The fungus was described as new to science in 1976 by American mycologis ...

'' of Western

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and ''

Omphalotus olearius ''Omphalotus olearius'',Singer R (1948) In: ''Pap. Mich. Acad. Sci.'' 32: 133 ('1946'). commonly known as the jack-o'-lantern mushroom, is a poisonous Orange (color), orange gilled mushroom that to an untrained eye appears similar to some Cantha ...

'' of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. ''Omphalotus japonicus'' is poisonous, its consumption results in acute nausea and vomiting for several hours. It is often confused with edible fungi and mistakenly consumed in Japan.

Taxonomy

Inoko first described this fungus as ''Pleurotus noctilucens'' in 1889, however the name proved invalid as the binomial had already been used for another species. Given the name ''Pleurotus japonicus'' by Seiichi Kawamura in 1915, it was given the name ''Lampteromyces japonicus'' by

Rolf Singer Rolf Singer (June 23, 1906 – January 18, 1994) was a Germany, German-born mycologist and one of the most important Taxonomy (biology), taxonomists of gilled mushrooms (agarics) in the 20th century. After receiving his Ph.D. at the University ...

in 1947, until the genus ''Lampteromyces'' was sunk into ''

'' in 2004. Hitoshi Neda has proposed this fungus is the same as one described by

Miles Joseph Berkeley Miles Joseph Berkeley (1 April 1803 – 30 July 1889) was an English cryptogamist and clergyman, and one of the founders of the science of plant pathology. Life Berkeley was born at Biggin Hall, Benefield, Northamptonshire, and educated at R ...

as ''Agaricus guepiniformis'' in 1878, as the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

fits the description of ''O. japonicus'' and hence, based on the

principle of priority 270px, '' valid name. Priority is a fundamental principle of modern botanical nomenclature and zoological nomenclature. Essentially, it is the principle of recognising the first valid application of a name to a plant or animal. There are two asp ...

, the name should be ''Omphalotus guepiniformis'' (Berk.) Neda. A proposal was submitted in 2006 to

conserve Conserve may refer to: * Conserve (condiment), a preserve made from a mixture of fruits or vegetables * Conserve (NGO), an Indian environmental organization * Conserve (publisher), a Dutch publisher * Conserved sequence, a protein or nucleic aci ...

the epithet ''japonicus'' against ''guepiniformis'' and another

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

, ''Pleurotus harmandii''. The proposal was accepted by the

Nomenclature Committee for Fungi International Botanical Congress (IBC) is an international meeting of botanists in all scientific fields, authorized by the International Association of Botanical and Mycological Societies (IABMS) and held every six years, with the location rotati ...

in 2008. The little-known ''Lampteromyces luminescens'', described in 1979 in China by M. Zang, is similar genetically and may be a synonym, however the taxon is insufficiently known to confirm this. The species is mentioned in ''

Konjaku Monogatarishū , also known as the , is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794–1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales fr ...

'', an anthology of Japanese folk tales dating from the 12th century. The Japanese name ''tsukiyotake'' translates as "moon-night mushroom".

Description

The fleshy

fruit bodies The sporocarp (also known as fruiting body, fruit body or fruitbody) of fungi is a multicellular structure on which spore-producing structures, such as basidia or asci, are borne. The fruitbody is part of the sexual phase of a fungal life cyc ...

have an eccentric

stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

rendering the cap kidney- or half-moon-shaped and only round when young. The

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. Caps typically have a visor, or no brim at all. They are popular in casual and informal se ...

is light brown when young and darkens with age, with yellow or pinkish tinges. The

flesh Flesh is any aggregation of soft tissues of an organism. Various multicellular organisms have soft tissues that may be called "flesh". In mammals, including humans, ''flesh'' encompasses muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as mu ...

is white and up to 2 cm (0.8 in) thick in the cap. The thick white

gills A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

are

decurrent ''Decurrent'' (sometimes decurring) is a term used in botany and mycology to describe plant or fungal parts that extend downward. In botany, the term is most often applied to leaf blades that partly wrap or have wings around the stem or petio ...

and can yellow with age. The stem is thick and fleshy and can be up to 2 cm (0.8 in) thick and 5 cm (2 in) long. The gills glow with a whitish light. Kawamura reported that the fungi can be seen from 30 m (100 ft) away at night, and that 100 square centimetres of glowing mushrooms allowed him to read Roman characters of 8 mm size by their light. This fungus is mistaken for the commonly eaten oyster mushroom (''

Pleurotus ostreatus ''Pleurotus ostreatus'', the oyster mushroom, oyster fungus, or hiratake, is a common edible mushroom. It was first cultivated in Germany as a subsistence measure during World War I and is now grown commercially around the world for food. It is ...

''), Shiitake (''

Lentinula edodes The shiitake (alternate form shitake) (; ''Lentinula edodes'') is an edible mushroom native to East Asia, which is now cultivated and consumed around the globe. It is considered a medicinal mushroom in some forms of traditional medicine. Ta ...

''), and Mukitake ('' Sarcomixa serotina''), but is poisonous. ''O. japonicus'' was responsible for 31.6% of poisoning cases in Japan between 1996 and 2005—more than any other mushroom. Symptoms of ''O. japonicus'' poisoning are nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The most common treatment is

fluid therapy Intravenous therapy (abbreviated as IV therapy) is a medical technique that administers fluids, medications and nutrients directly into a person's vein. The intravenous route of administration is commonly used for rehydration or to provide nutri ...

Habitat and distribution

The fungus grows on dead

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

trees, and is found in mountainous regions of Japan, the fruit bodies appearing in September and October. One of the most common mushrooms growing on decaying beech wood in that country, it is classified as " Vulnerable" because beech forests are being depleted. It is also found in Korea, China, and far eastern Russia.

Bioactive compounds

Fruit bodies contain the

sesquiterpene Sesquiterpenes are a class of terpenes that consist of three isoprene units and often have the molecular formula C15H24. Like monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes may be cyclic or contain rings, including many unique combinations. Biochemical modificatio ...

compounds

illudin The illudins are a family of sesquiterpenes with antitumor antibiotic properties produced by some mushrooms. In their isolated form, illudins show selective toxicity for myelocytic leukemia and other carcinoma cells. Illudins are highly toxic, w ...

S and illudin M.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q7090731 Bioluminescent fungi

japonicus This list of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names is intended to help those unfamiliar with classical languages to understand and remember the scientific names of organisms. The binomial nomenclature used for animals and plants i ...