Red-juice Tooth

Description

Red-juice Tooth, also called Bleeding Tooth, is a common and widespread toothed fungus. It occurs in Europe and North America. In the United States it occurs in the east from Maine to Florida, west to eastern Minnesota and Alabama, in Colorado, and west of the Rocky Mountains from Washington to central California. It is uncommon in Minnesota, where it reaches the western extent of its eastern range. It is found in late summer and fall, in coniferous and mixed forests, alone, scattered, in groups, or in clusters. It grows on the ground under conifers. It has a mutually beneficial relationship (mycorrhizal) with the tiny rootlets of trees, absorbing sugars and amino acids while helping the tree absorb water.

Red-juice Tooth is easily recognized when young. When it first appears the fruiting body is top-shaped and white to pink. The upper surface is moist and is densely covered with felty or velvety hairs. As it ages the cap expands, becoming broadly convex to flat. It grows around whatever it touches and it is often embedded with plant stems, pine needles, or other debris. When growing in clusters, adjacent caps fuse together, making it difficult to distinguish individual fruiting bodies. The upper surface exudes droplets of bright ruby red or dark red liquid. Mature caps are 1″ to 6″ (2.5 to 15.0 cm) in diameter, depressed in the middle, lumpy, jagged, or ridged, and sometimes pitted. The upper surface is hairless, scaly, and brown, dark brown, or reddish-brown in the center, pale around the margins. Older caps are almost entirely a dark shade of brown.

The underside of the cap, the spore surface, is covered with short, spine-like teeth. The teeth are 1⁄32″ to ¼″ (1 to 6 mm) long and dull pinkish at first, soon becoming brown or purplish-brown, sometimes with pale tips. The pore surface sometimes runs down the stalk.

The stalk is solid, tough, 3⁄16″ to 3″ (0.5 to 7.5 cm) long, and ⅜″ to 1¼″ (1 to 3 cm) thick. It may be connected centered or off-centered to the cap. It is colored like the cap or darker than the cap, and it is covered with fine felty or velvety hairs.

The flesh is tough, corky, and insubstantial. The taste has been described as "burning-acrid”, “very hot”, and “intensely peppery”. All of which makes this fungus inedible.

The spore print is dull brown.

Similar Species

Habitat and Hosts

Coniferous and mixed forests. Conifers.

Ecology

Season

Late summer and fall