Blistered Cup

Description:

Fruiting body 2-5 cm broad, sessile, globose, becoming urn-shaped, often contorted when clustered; margin incurved, remaining so in age, at times eroded or cracked in age; hymenium (inner surface) light-brown, pale yellow-brown to medium brown, frequently convoluted or wrinkled; outer surface granulose to furfuraceous, sometimes indistinctly so when weathered, tan, pale-buff, to nearly white; flesh thin, pale yellow-brown, fragile; odor and taste mild. • Spores Spores 20-24 x 11-13 µm, elliptical, smooth, lacking oil droplets; white in deposit. • Habitat Scattered to clustered on manure (especially horse manure), and composted straw; common around stables and horse pastures; fruiting fall, winter and spring. • Edibility Unknown. • Comments A combination of characters make this Peziza relatively easy to identify. Most obvious is its preference for fruiting in clusters on horse dung or decayed straw. While many other cup fungi also occur on dung, in our area all are smaller, differently colored, or have hairs on the cup margin. Peziza vesiculosa is additionally distinguished by an urn-shaped cup with a margin incurved even at maturity, a wrinkled yellowish-brown hymenial inner surface and a pale tan furfuraceous outer surface ( http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Peziz... )

Habitat:

location: North America, Europe edibility: Inedible fungus colour: Yellow, Grey to beige normal size: 5-15cm cap type: Cup shaped stem type: Lateral, rudimentary or absent flesh: Flesh granular or brittle spore colour: White, cream or yellowish habitat: Grows on the ground, Grows on plant material/manure --Habitat on manure, rotting straw bales and rich soil. Season all year. Common. Poisonous unless well cooked. Distribution, America and Europe ( http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/D... )

Notes:

Medicinal properties Immunostimulatory effects Vesiculogen, a hot-water extractable mitogen from P. vesiculosa, was shown be a polyclonal B cell activator in mice (Suzuki et al., 1985). This activity was shown earlier to be not due to polysaccharides (Yadomae et al., 1979). The mitogenicity of vesiculogen is due to the presence of anionic groups (such as aspartate and glutamate) (Ohno et al., 1984). Furthermore, the mitogen was determined to be a high-molecular weight, acidic polypeptide, showing charge and weight heterogeneities (Ohno et al., 1986). Antitumor effects The immunomodulatory vesiculogen was shown to have antitumor activity against both solid and ascite forms of Sarcoma 180 in mice (Suzuki, 1982). Additionally, an antitumor β-1,3-glucan has been purified and characterized (Mimura et al., 1985). The glucan is branched at position 6 of every fifth 3-substituted β-glucosyl unit. The glucan was assayed against solid form Sarcoma 180 tumor cells in mice, and showed growth inhibition of more than 90% at 75, 150, 300 µg/dose x 10 days. A significant difference from the control was observed at all glucan doses ( http://healing-mushrooms.net/archives/pe... )