Auriscalpium

Auriscalpium is a genus of mushrooms typifying the family Auriscalpiaceae^[1] and characterized by in part by rough-walled, amyloid spores that are produced on pendant spines, hence it is considered to be a tooth fungus. The type species, A. vulgare is a common, easily identified fungus in the Northern Hemisphere found fruiting exclusively on mature, fallen, often buried conifer cones. Its wiry, long hairy stipe is topped by a excentrically place, shaggy pileus bearing the pendant, flexible, spore-bearing spines. The entire fructification ressembles and perhaps could be used as an ear pick (see etymology below). Other species in the genus do not occur on cones or lack the excentric pileus on a long stalk.

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Etymology

Auriscalpium is a compounded of the Latin, auris, "ear"; and scalpo, "I scratch", generally meaning ear pick. The term was originally applied as a species epithet by Linnaeus in 1753, viz. Hydnum auriscalpium and changed in 1821 to vulgare when S.F. Gray recognized the cone-inhabiting fungus as a new genus, named after its type species, Auriscalpium vulgare. Tautonyms, such as "Auriscalpium auriscalpium" are illegitimate under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

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