Medicinal Mushrooms

Galerina clavata (Velen.) Kühner showing its translucently striate, hygrophanous cap and long, slender stem.
Credit: James Lindsey
Source: Wikimedia Commons, via James Lindsey's Ecology of Commanster Site (CC by-as 2.5)

Synonyms

Galera clavata (Velenovský) J.E. Lange
  Fl. Agaric. Danic. 4: 40 (1939)
Galera fragilis var. clavata Velen.
  České Houby 3: 548 (1921)
Galerina heterocystis sensu auct. eur.
  fide Checklist of Basidiomycota of Great Britain and Ireland (2005)

Groot mosklokje (Dutch)
Entferntblättriger (German)

Cap: 5-30 mm diameter, convex with faint umbo becoming broadly convex with shallow depression at center; color orange, brown at center and over striations to pale yellow-brown over the margin; moist, translucently striate, hygrophanous, whitish veil remnants at margin fugacious.
Gills: adnate to emarginate, subdistant, ochraceous-brown, edges subfimbriate and concolorous.

Credit: James Lindsey, as above.
Stem: 20-70 mm tall x 0.5-2 mm diameter, cylindrical, equal or slightly enlarged at base; pale yellow brown (like margin of cap), densely covered with minute white hairs, scattered fibrillose at base, disappearing with maturity; context concolorous with cap, thin in cap and stem.
Spores: ellipsoid, suprahilar depression always distinctive, yellow-brown, marbled or minutely warted to coarsely warted, nonamyloid, 12-14 x 5-7 µm.
Odor and taste: not distinctive.
Edibility: inedible. Furthermore, certain members of this genera are known to contain the deadly toxins α- and β-amanitin, which can cause severe liver failure (Enjalbert et al., 2004).
Habitat: solitary or in small groups in moss, especially after heavy rain; usually associated with conifers and alders; summer and autumn; rare.

Description adapted and modified from Horak and Miller (1991) and Jordan (2004) pg. 282.

Medicinal properties
Antitumor effects

Polysaccharides extracted from the mycelial culture of G. clavata and administered intraperitoneally into white mice at a dosage of 300 mg/kg inhibited the growth of Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich solid cancers by 60% (Ohtsuka et al., 1973).

Links

• There's a variety of photographs at Mushroom Observer, as well as some useful notes about the deprecated synonym Galerina heterocystis (Atk.) A. H. Smith, R. Singer.
• Some Italian sites (here and here and here) have additional photos (including some beautiful microscopy at the former).

References

Enjalbert F, Cassanas G, Rapior S, Renault C, Chaumont J-P.
Amatoxins in wood-rotting Galerina marginata.
Mycologia. 2004 96(4):720–9.
Online PDF

Horak E, Miller OK.
Phaegalera and galerina in arctic sub-arctic Alaska (USA) and the Yukon Territory.
Can J Bot. 1991 70(2):414-433.

Jordan M. (2004).
The Encyclopedia of Fungi of Britain and Europe.
Frances Lincoln Ltd. 384 pp.

Ohtsuka S, Ueno S, Yoshikumi C, Hirose F, Ohmura Y, Wada T, Fujii T, Takahashi E.
Polysaccharides having an anticarcinogenic effect and a method of producing them from species of Basidiomycetes.
UK Patent 1331513, 26 September 1973.

 

Last modified: 09-Sept-2008

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Anti-tumor, Medicinal Effects, Medicinal Mushrooms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.