The violet pouch fungus (Cortinarius porphyroideus) is a truffle-like fungus found in the leaf litter of beech forests. Its spore-producing tissue is enclosed within its purple cap. Spores are released when the cap begins to disintegrate, or when insects and other small animals eat the tissue within the cap.

Found on flickr

  • SubArcticTundraEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Woaaaaah, could this be used as a natural purple pigment? Iirc purple used to be really rare in the past

    • quinacridoneOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      It doesn’t say on wikipedia if it can be used for making dyes, but the colour is due to light exposure…

      Young fruit bodies that are still beneath the earth are white; as they mature and emerge from the ground, the exposure to light causes the color to change to violet

      and also

      It was one of six species that appeared as part of a series depicting native New Zealand fungi on stamps, released in 2002

      It is incredibly striking, so I can see why it was ‘honoured’ with a stamp