Sunday, January 06, 2008

"Country Scientist: Winds may have forged old link between Japan, Texas"

Forrest M. Mims III writes in the San Antonio Express-News about an ancient link between Texas and Japan.

Each spring, powerful wind storms sweep across China and Japan. The storms carry dust from the Gobi desert over the Pacific Ocean and sometimes all the way to Texas.

These wind storms may explain why one of the world's rarest mushrooms is found in only two locations on opposite sides of the globe. In the distant past an ancient windstorm may have blown spores from the rare mushrooms to Texas.

The mushroom is known to botanists as Chorioactis geaster. In Texas it's known as the devil's cigar because of its appearance when it emerges from the soil and the smoke-like cloud of spores it emits. I prefer its newer name, the Texas star.

...

Chorioactis geaster is very rare in Texas and even rarer in Japan, where it is designated as "critically endangered."

In Texas, it is found growing from cedar elm stumps and roots along creeks between Arlington and Guadalupe County.

In Japan, it grows from the mossy stumps or trunks of decaying oaks on steep, heavily wooded slopes along a few streams on the island of Kyushu.


A little strange, but also pretty cool.

2 comments:

Dave said...

Chorioactis geaster.

Geaster. I don't know what it is, but it is a damn fine word.

If my kids didn't already have names, I'd consider it an option.

Albatross said...

But, would you pronounce it "GEE-ster" or "gee-AST-er"? One way sounds like you're from the country, the other like you're city folk.

Them's important things fer condsiderin'.