Truffles from the Langhe area in Piedmont, in northern Italy, still haven't reached Lombard shores, as the precious hypogeous tuber from Alba is late this year.
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A phylogenetic analysis of molecular and morphological data suggests that there are three lineages within Pezizales. Lineage A includes Ascobolaceae and Pezizaceae. The former has no known hypogeous species. Lineage B includes the two epigeous families Rhizinaceae and Caloscyphaceae, as well as two sub-lineages with known hypogeous species, Morchellaceae–Discinaceae and Helvellaceae–Tuberaceae.
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Sphaerosoma is a genus of fungi in the family Pyronemataceae. It contains three hypogeous (truffle-like) species that have been collected from Europe and North America.
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Lineage C include Ascodesmidaceae, Sarcoscyphaceae, Sarcosomataceae with no known hypogeous species as well as Glaziellaceae and Pyronemataceae. It is unknown where Carbomycetaceae fits into this lineage.
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Hypogeous fruitbodies, or fruitbodies developing below ground, occur in Lactarius and Russula and have previously been considered as distinct genera (see Systematics and taxonomy: Internal systematics). As such species are especially diverse in some warm and dry regions, e.g. in Spain, California, or Australia, below-ground fruiting has been interpreted as an adaptation to drought. However, hypogeous Russulaceae are also known from cold temperate regions and tropical rainforest.
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The opposite terms are hypogean, hypogeic and hypogeous. An epigeal nest is a term used for a termite mound, the above ground nest of a colony of termites.
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Members of the family are diverse in ascomatal or cleistothecial form. Individual taxa may be sessile (without a stipe) to shortly stipitate, cupulate (cup-shaped), discoid (disc-shaped), pulvinate (cushion-shaped), or with turbinate (turban-shaped) epigeous apothecia. Also, taxa may be sub-hypogeous to hypogeous with closed, folded, or solid ascomata. Apothecia may range in size from less than 1 mm up to 12 cm diam, and may be brightly colored due to carotenoid pigments.
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The Diversisporales are an order of generally hypogeous (underground) arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi within the division Glomeromycota. Many have vesicles for energy storage, or auxiliary cells. Species produce a wide range of spore types, hence the name.
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The fruit bodies of many species take on classic, well-recognized shapes such as epigeous mushrooms and hypogeous truffles. Most of these produce microscopic propagules of about 10 μm that can disperse over large distances by way of various vectors, ranging from wind to mycophagous animals. It has been suggested that animals are drawn to hypogeous fruiting bodies because they are rich in nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, minerals and vitamins. However, others argue that the specific nutrients are less important than the availability of food at specific times of the year.
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The fact that hypogeous species in the Russulaceae do not form their own lineages but are scattered in Russula or Lactarius shows that this type of fruiting evolved several times. It is believed that these changes are evolutionarily quite recent.
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From translocation of the potoroo, the species was found to survive on many different kinds of fungi, not limited to the species available in its habitat at Two People's Bay. As with many of the potoroine species, the primary type of fungus consumed is hypogeous, with the above ground fruiting bodies of epigeous fungi forming only a minor part of their diet. Plant matter consumed includes leaves and stems, and invertebrates have also been recorded in the excreta; this has been regarded as incidental ingestion while eating subterranean fungi. Ninety percent of the volume of material consumed is hypogeous fungus.
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Fruitbodies are termed epigeous if they grow on the ground, like those of ordinary mushrooms, while others which grow underground are hypogeous. Epigeous sporocarps that are visible to the naked eye, especially fruitbodies of a more or less agaricoid morphology, are often referred to as mushrooms, while hypogeous fungi are usually called truffles or false truffles. During their evolution, truffles lost the ability to disperse their spores by air currents, and propagate instead by animal consumption and subsequent defecation. In amateur mushroom hunting, and to a large degree in academic mycology as well, identification of higher fungi is based on the features of the sporocarp.
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This group also includes a number of russuloid hypogeous fungi, polypores such as Bondarzewia, some tooth fungi (e.g. Auriscalpium vulgare), and club fungi e.g. Artomyces. Basidiospores in this group are typically ornamented with amyloid warts or reticulation but a few exceptions are known, e.g. Heterobasidion annosum.
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It contains microorganisms that remove bacteria and trap contaminant particles. The terms hypogean and hypogeic are used for fossorial (burrowing) and troglobitic (or stygobitic) cave-living organisms. The opposite terms are epigean and epigeic. The term hypogeous is used for fungi with underground fruiting bodies - for example, truffles.
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The western red-backed vole lives largely underground in an extensive system of burrows. It feeds primarily on fruiting bodies of hypogeous fungi. These mycorrhizal fungi are the symbionts of the forest trees around it. Rhizopogon vinicolor is one such which is associated with the Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga spp.).
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All four hypogeous Morchellaceae genera produce huge spores, with sizes ranging from 32 to 100 micrometers (μm). Both Kalapuya and Imaia have asci (spore-bearing cells) that have thick cell walls when young, but become thin when mature—a trait not shared with Fischerula. The authors explain that although the hypogeous Morchellaceae genera share the trait of large spore size, striking differences in spore structure and other morphological difference in microscopic characters would have ruled out placing them in the same family as Morchella, were it not for the convincing molecular evidence proving their relatedness. The generic name Kalapuya refers to the Kalapuya people, a Native American ethnic group whose traditional homelands encompassed the range of the fungus.
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Trappe was appointed a project leader in forest mycology at the Corvallis station in 1965 and he stayed in that position until his 'retirement' in 1996. When he arrived at Corvallis, one of the most important collections of hypogeous fungi in North America was in care of the retiring Professor Helen Margaret Gilkey who bequeathed it to Trappe, a windfall which aided his future research immensely. During his tenure at Corvallis he participated in and eventually became a trustee of the North American Truffling Society which has worked to further collaboration among hobbyists and researchers on in the field of hypogeous fungi, travelled to Torino to study truffle specimens, hosted visiting scholars from over 20 countries and mentored many prominent mycologists in their own right.
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Fevansia aurentiaca truffles are found in the Pacific Northwest but are uncommon. Truffles are hypogeous by nature, leading to a certain degree of difficulty in finding them. As a result, there are few specimens available for genetic analysis. Most of the Fevansia specimens can be found in the Mycological Herbarium of Oregon State University.
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"A critical revision of the Australian and New Zealand species of the genus Secotium". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 49(2): 97–119. It has been suggested that the genus may represent an intermediary evolutionary stage between a hypogeous (underground) ancestor and the related epigeous (above ground) genus Stropharia.Singer R. (1958).
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Rhopalogaster is a genus of hypogeous Basidiomycetes. The genus is monotypic, and contains the single species Rhopalogaster transversarium, found in the USA. This fungus was originally described as new to science in 1811 by French botanist Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc; Elias Magnus Fries transferred it to Cauloglossum in 1829. The genus was defined in 1902 by John Robert Johnston.
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The ellipsoid spores are blunt-ended and typically contain two large oil drops. Sarcosphaera is partly hypogeous (fruiting underground) and emerges from the ground as a whitish to cream-colored hollow ball. Young specimens are covered entirely by an easily removed thin protective membrane. As it matures, it splits open to expose the inner spore-bearing layer (hymenium).
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Abert's squirrel eating a ponderosa pinecone Abert's squirrels consume ponderosa pine year-round. Parts eaten include seeds, which are the most highly preferred item, inner bark (particularly of young twigs), terminal buds, staminate buds, and pollen cones. Other foods include fleshy fungi (particularly hypogeous fungi), carrion, bones, and antlers. Severe weather is not always a deterrent to feeding activity.
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Seeds from the cones from pine, Douglas-fir, and true firs are extracted by removing individual cone scales. Acorns and walnuts are also eaten when available, along with a variety of other tree seeds, hypogeous and occasionally epigeous fungi, and insects.Koprowski, J.L., Corse, M.C. (2001) Food habits of the Chiricahua fox squirrel (Sciurus nayaritensis chiricahuae). Southwest. Nat. 46, 62-65.
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Pachyphloeus is a genus of Ascomycete fungi (Pezizales, Pezizaceae) that forms hypogeous fruit bodies, aka truffles. Pachyphloeus citrinus is known as the "berry truffle" and Pachyphloeus austro-oregonensis is known as the "southern Oregon berry truffle". The genus Pachyphloeus forms ectomycorrhizal mutualisms with tree roots, usually oaks. Truffles require animals to dig them up and eat them, in order to disperse their spores.
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Rhizopogon is a genus of ectomycorrhizal Basidiomycetes in the family Rhizopogonaceae. Species form hypogeous sporocarps commonly referred to as "false truffles". The general morphological characters of Rhizopogon sporocarps are a simplex or duplex peridium surrounding a loculate gleba that lacks a columnella. Basidiospores are produced upon basidia that are borne within the fungal hymenium that coats the interior surface of gleba locules.
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Members of this order are characterized by asci that typically open by rupturing to form a terminal or eccentric lid or operculum. The ascomata are apothecia or are closed structures of various forms derived from apothecia. Apothecia range in size from less than a millimeter to approximately 15 cm, and may be stalked or sessile. The order includes epigeous, semihypogeous to hypogeous (truffles) taxa.
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Solioccasus is a fungal genus in the family Boletaceae. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single Australasian species Solioccasus polychromus. This is a truffle-like species with a roughly spherical to lobed fruitbody, which measures up to in diameter. It is initially dull white, but becomes yellow to pink to orange to red in maturity, making it one of the most brightly colored hypogeous species known.
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Zelleromyces is a genus of fungi in the family Russulaceae. It was first described by mycologists Rolf Singer and Alexander H. Smith in 1960 to contain hypogeous (underground) fungi with gasteroid fruit bodies that "bleed" latex when they are cut. Phylogenetic analyses show that Zelleromyces species fall into the genus Lactarius. Nevertheless, the genus name is still in use and has not been formally synonymised with Lactarius yet.
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Elaphomyces (‘deer truffles’) is a genus of hypogeous fungi in the family Elaphomycetaceae. The widespread genus contains 25 truffle-like species. Elaphomyces is one of the most important ectomycorrhizal fungal genera in temperate and subarctic forest ecosystems. E. asperulus, E. granulatus, and E. muricatus were found to accumulate arsenic (12–660 mg/kg in dry mass); the composition of organoarsenicals is very unusual, with methylarsonic acid and trimethylarsine oxide as major As compounds.
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The genus was first described by Italian doctor and naturalist Carlo Vittadini in 1831. for hypogeous (below-ground) gasteromycetes with chambers exposed to the surface and lined with a spore- bearing hymenium, a basal rhizomorph, and ovoid-fusiform, striate-grooved spores. Vittadini's original concept was based on two species he collected in Italy, Gauteria morchellaeformis and Gautieria graveolens. In 1918, Zeller and Dodge examined various dried herbarium collections of Gautieria, and recognized five species.
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The ascocarp is classified according to its placement (in ways not fundamental to the basic taxonomy). It is called epigeous if it grows above ground, as with the morels, while underground ascocarps, such as truffles, are termed hypogeous. The form of the hymenium is divided into the following types (which are important for classification). Apothecia can be relatively large and fleshy, whereas the others are microscopic--about the size of flecks of ground pepper.
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Truffles are fungi that have evolved to be hypogeous, or below the ground, and thus they have reduced morphological features. Some of the features commonly analyzed on truffles are the peridium, or the outside, the gleba, which is the inner tissue which contains the spores, and the spores themselves. The peridium of Fevansia is 100–200 µm thick. The gleba is firm and moist and the color is pale orange with either a pink or an orange tint.
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The fruit bodies of Geastrum fimbriatum start out roughly spherical and hypogeous. As it matures, it pushed up through the soil and the other layer of the spore case (exoperidium) splits open to form between 5 and 8 rays that curve downward. The fully expanded fruit body has a diameter of up to . Before expansion, the outer surface has a cottony surface with adherent soil particles; this ultimately peels off to reveal a smooth, grayish-brown surface.
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The bacteria produce the nutrients that are digested in the rest of the animal's stomach and small intestine. When it was widespread and abundant, the woylie probably played an important role in the dispersal of fungal spores within desert ecosystems. The austral summer and autumn seasons provide woylies with the fruiting bodies of hypogeous fungi, and around 24 fungal taxa are known to be consumed. During the summer months, species of the truffle-like Mesophellia form the major part of the diet.
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The hypogeous sporocarp of Tuber melanosporum, the black Périgord truffle Unlike most arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, EcM fungi reproduce sexually and produce visible fruiting bodies in a wide variety of forms. The fruiting body, or sporocarp, can be thought of as an extension of the extraradical hyphae. Its cell walls and spores are typically composed of complex carbohydrates, and often incorporate a great deal of nitrogen. Many EcM fungi can only form fruiting bodies and complete their life cycles by participating in an EcM relationship.
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The Morchellaceae are a family of ascomycete fungi in the order Pezizales. According to a standard reference work, the family has contained at least 49 species distributed among 4 genera, but in 2012, 5 genera producing the sequestrate and hypogeous ascoma were added. The best-known members are the highly regarded and commercially picked true morels of the genus Morchella, the thimble morels of the genus Verpa, and a genus of cup-shaped fungi Disciotis. The remaining four genera produce the sequestrate fruit bodies.
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The edible epigeous fruiting body of Cantharellus cibarius, the golden chanterelle Many ectomycorrhizal fungi rely upon mammals for the dispersal of their spores, particularly fungi with hypogeous fruiting bodies. Many species of small mammals are mycophages, eating a wide range of fungi and especially the fruiting bodies. Spores are dispersed either because the fruiting body is unearthed and broken apart, or after ingestion and subsequent excretion. Some studies even suggest that passage through an animal's gut promotes spore germination, although for most fungal species this is not necessary.
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Hypogeal, hypogean, hypogeic and hypogeous (meaning "underground", from Greek hypó "under" + gaîa "earth") are biological terms describing an organism's activity below the soil surface. In botany, a seed is described as showing hypogeal germination when the cotyledons of the germinating seed remain non- photosynthetic, inside the seed shell, and below ground. The converse, where the cotyledons expand, throw off the seed shell and become photosynthetic above the ground, is epigeal germination. In water purification works, the hypogeal (or Schmutzdecke) layer is a biological film just below the surface of slow sand filters.
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Schematic representation of a typical basidiocarp, showing fruiting body, hymenium and basidia In fungi, a basidiocarp, basidiome or basidioma (plural: basidiomata) is the sporocarp of a basidiomycete, the multicellular structure on which the spore-producing hymenium is borne. Basidiocarps are characteristic of the hymenomycetes; rusts and smuts do not produce such structures. As with other sporocarps, epigeous (above-ground) basidiocarps that are visible to the naked eye (especially those with a more or less agaricoid morphology) are commonly referred to as mushrooms, while hypogeous (underground) basidiocarps are usually called false truffles.
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Calostoma cinnabarinum, showing the gelatinous layer and amphibian egg-like appearance The appearance of the fruit bodies has been compared to amphibian eggs or "small red tomato[es] surrounded by jelly". They consist of a bright red, globose head atop a net-like stipe, covered in a thick gelatinous layer. These fruit bodies are initially hypogeous, but emerge from the ground as the stipe continues to expand. The head is up to in diameter and typically nearly round, although in some populations, it is visibly oval and may be slightly smaller or larger.
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Fruit-bodies are mostly epigenous (above ground), rarely hypogeous (underground), more or less spherical in shape, without a stem or with an irregular root-like stem. The peridium (outer wall) is mostly simple, rarely 2-layered, firm, rarely thin, membranous, breaking open irregularly or in lobes or decaying, revealing the gleba. The gleba typically has sharply defined basidia-bearing sectors, which are partitioned from one another by sterile veins, and in which the basidia are regularly scattered through the tissue. The gleba, which is brown or white in young specimens, turns dark purple to brownish purple in age, and crumbles to a powder of spores and disintegrating tissues at maturity.
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The core of the truffles of Mesophellia is consumed by woylies, which avoid the hard outer layer, and has been analysed for its nutritional value. The food is a rich source of lipids and trace elements accumulated by the fungus, and high protein levels that lack the required lycine and other amino acids, may be compensated by fermentation processes on the available aminos cysteine and methionine within the digestion. In other seasons, woylies may adopt a more herbivorous range of foods in addition to that season's hypogeous fungal bodies. Woylies have been observed eating the large seeds of Australian sandalwood, Santalum spicatum, a nutritious food that the animal is known to place in a shallow cache for later consumption.
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As mentioned above, San Pancrazio is one of the few catacombs in Rome whose track has not been completely lost during the centuries, even if it has often been confused with other catacombs rising along the Via Aurelia. Antonio Bosio thoroughly studied the cemetery, but he confused it with the cemetery of Calepodius; the two catacombs were distinguished by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in the 19th century. Excavations carried out at the beginning of the 1930s under the floor of the Basilica of San Pancrazio led to the discovery of a Roman street that cut in two, diagonally to the church; they also brought to light some mausolea and ground graves, both inside the basilica and in its square, such demonstrating that the hypogeous cemetery also included an extended funerary area on the topsoil.
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The species was first described scientifically in 2010, based on specimens collected in February, 2009 from Benton County, Oregon. Before this, it had been known locally for several years as the Oregon brown truffle, and assumed to be an undescribed species of Leucangium, based on its overall resemblance to and similar habitat as the Oregon black truffle, Leucangium carthusianum; it was given the provisional name Leucangium brunneum. Molecular analysis of DNA sequences revealed that the species is not related to the truffle genera of the family Tuberaceae, including Tuber, Dingleya and Reddellomyces. Rather, it has close affinity with the hypogeous (below the soil surface) genera of the Morchellaceae, including Fischerula, Imaia, and Leucangium, but both genetic and morphological characters are sufficiently distinct to warrant designation as a distinct genus.
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The town is located on the Via Emilia, a major thoroughfare for town traffic, from the city centre of Bologna towards the southeast. The territory of the municipality extends towards the plain and at the foot of the first hills around Bologna. Some watercourses such as the Zena (creek), the Idice and the Savena, after which the town was named, flow through the town. Within the territory of the municipality we can find the Spipola Cave with its doline and the chalky rock emergences of the Farneto and the Croara, that give shape to a karst compound (there are about 50 caves and natural hollows crossed by a long hypogeous stream), protected by the Parco dei Gessi Bolognesi e Calanchi dell'Abbadessa (Natural park of Bologna's chalky rocks and the Abbess's gully).
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