Can Golf Balls Grow On Trees?
Although they resemble golf balls, this is actually the mushroom Cyttaria darwinii (Darwin’s fungus). Cyttaria darwinii grows in the southern tip of South America. It was collected and described by Charles Darwin. It’s edible and can grow in large quantities, with dozens of mushrooms fruiting from the same tree. Darwin said that it was “eaten by the Fuegians, in large quantities.”
Cytarria darwinii is an ascomyte, as are Morchella (Morels). As the C. darwinii fruiting body matures, the white spots turn into dimpled tiny cups — apothecia. They serve the same function as the apothecia on the outside of Morchella (Morels).
Mature C. darwinii © Richard Sullivan 
Morchella rufobrunnea © 2017 Jacob Kalichman
Other Cyttaria species also grow in Patagonia. Some grow thousands of miles away in Australia and New Zealand. But they don’t occur in North America or anywhere else north of the Equator. Their closest Oregon relatives are ascomycetes in the class Leotiomycetes, for example: Bulgaria inquinans (black bulgar) and Chlorociboria aeruginascens (green stain fungus):
Chlorociboria aeruginascens © 2018 Huafang 
Bulgaria inquinans © 2015 Joseph D. Cohen
But they’re not close relatives. As shown in these charts, they’re like third cousins.
Why is this relationship so distant? And why do Cyttarria grow thousands of miles apart in Patagonia and New Guinea, but not in Oregon? Cyttaria evolved over 80 million years ago. At that time Patagonia and Australasia were connected as part of Gondwana, and at about the same latitude. Cyttaria took its own evolutionary path, becoming an obligatory parasite (growing only on) of Nothofagus (Southern Beech), which were present in that area of Gondwana.
Eventually, those areas — with their flora and fungi — drifted apart. So today, golf balls grow on trees in only a few, widely scattered locations, far from us.
If you’re interested in finding out more, try these links:
- The Chilean mycologist celebrating fungi’s “hidden kingdom”. BBC article about Giuliana Furci, the Chilean mycologist whose Cytarria photos are featured above.
- Fungi Friday-Darwin’s golfball fungus; Cyttaria darwinii. blog post.
- Peterson, Kristin R., Donald H. Pfister and Charles D. Bell (2010). Cophylogeny and biogeography of the fungal parasite Cyttaria and its host Nothofagus, Southern Beech. Mycologia 102(6): 1417-1425.
- Kristin R. Peterson & Donald H. Pfister (2010). Phylogeny of Cyttaria inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial sequence and morphological data, Mycologia, 102:6, 1398-1416.
- Berkeley, M.J. 1842. On an edible fungus from Tierra del Fuego, and an allied Chilian species. Transactions of the Linnaean Society of London. 19:37-43. Includes the protologue (the original formal species description).
- Darwin, C. 1839. The narrative of the voyages of H.M. Ships Adventure and Beagle. Vol. III.
All photographs are from Mushroom Observer and licensed under a Creative Commons license.
