Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service recently discovered 33 new species of toxin-producing fungi, opening the door for research to combat a major scourge of the
Scientific American
In Guyanese savannas, a fungus infects grasslike plants, sterilizes them and produces bizarre all-fungal “flower” doppelgängers
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Two orange-yellow “blooms” at right are fungal mimics of flowers produced by yellow-eyed grasses, such as the one at left. Credit: K. Wurdack
Smithsonian Institution
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On a collection trip to Guyana in 2006, botanist Kenneth Wurdack was strolling along an airstrip at Kaieteur National Park when he noticed something unusual about the flowers on two species of yellow-eyed grasses. Unlike the species’ typical blooms, they were a more orange shade of yellow, tightly clustered and spongy in texture. “I just sort of filed it away as an incidental thing,” Wurdack says.