Sarcodon martioflavus
I’m no mycologist, but my friend Michael Krikorev (responsible for the Swedish shroom site, Svampguiden) is. The other day, as he was giving me and my parents a crash course in edible fruiting bodies in the forest adjacent to my parental home, we found an odd specimen which Mike quickly and excitedly identified as quite a rarity.
The mushroom is a Sarcodon martioflavus, called “sammetstaggsvamp” in Swedish but lacking a common English name. It does look like something I’ve never seen before - not a surprise, since according to Mike, there are only about 20 known localities for this species in Sweden. According to another mycologist, Klas Jaederfeldt, it’s only been found in one other site in eastern Sweden.
I’m not a shroom-twitcher, or any kind of twitcher really, but finds like these are always exciting. Especially since the species in question is redlisted as Vulnerable. “Our” forest is not just a nice secluded recreational area and provider of foodstuffs (apart from mushrooms, my parents enjoy homemade blueberry and lingonberry jam all year round), but a remnant of the old virgin woodland that used to cover this country before the forest industry had its way with it.
One of these days, I’m going to take a camera and carefully document the treasures of this place, because any year it might be cleared, creating yet another gaping and bleeding wound in the landscape.