Coral-Pink Phlebia (Phlebia incarnata) - From a Foray in the New Jersey Meadowlands
- Aubrey
- Oct 13
- 6 min read
Good morning, friends,
This past Thursday, a group of amateur mycologists joined Dr. Erik Kiviat of Hudsonia Ltd. to look for mushrooms in a landscape where you might expect to find bodies instead. The New Jersey Meadowlands is an urban wetland ecosystem just a few miles west of Manhattan that serves not only as a home for roughly 300 species of birds, 50 species of fish, and an untold number of mushrooms, but also as a dump for the excesses of all the industrial (and organized criminal) activities in the neighboring areas over the past century.
Erik is no stranger to the Meadowlands, as he’s conducted surveys on the flora and fauna of the area for decades, and recently he co-authored a book on the biodiversity and natural history of the Meadowlands. However, this was the first time he’d come to specifically look for fungi.
The timing for Erik’s first fungal foray in the area wasn’t the best, unfortunately, as it was bone dry. It might’ve been more fruitful to conduct a survey on the garbage we encountered — the most intriguing piece of which was the seasonally appropriate head of a plastic “Chucky” doll (the rest of the body was never recovered). However, we did happen upon one peculiar mushroom that I’d only seen once before.
In response to the dry conditions, most of our time was spent looking at dead wood where polypores and other drought-tolerant mushrooms tend to persist. We were slowly picking our way up a drainage seep when Gabriela D’Elia, author of Fungi Talk, stumbled upon a dead, fallen oak covered in False Turkey-tail (Stereum). Erupting out of the middle of the False Turkey-tail flush, now gray after fruiting earlier in the year and persisting through the dry summer, was the Coral-Pink Phlebia (Phlebia incarnata).
The Meadowlands
What made the trip a touch more eventful was I did it all via public transportation. I was already in the area for a presentation I did in Stamford, CT on Wednesday evening, so the following morning I took a train and a bus to Losen Slote Creek Park in Little Ferry, NJ where I met up with the rest of the group (consisting of Matthew Rozanoff, his mom Anna, Farah Marie Velten, Gabriela, and Erik).
The bus departed from Manhattan’s 42nd St Port Authority Bus Terminal and wound us around the Meadowlands Sports Complex before dropping me off about a fifteen-minute walk from the park. I actually grew up going to the Meadowlands, but in a much different capacity than my visit on Thursday. My dad has season tickets to the New York Jets who play their home games at the colorless coliseum, MetLife Stadium, which is one of the feature eyesores of the complex.
The stadium is the most characterless and mundane stadium in the NFL, partially due to the shared occupancy with the New York Giants, and the product that the Jets trot out on the field is consistent with the facility’s aesthetic. If you had any doubts about the impact of your surrounding environment on your wellbeing and success, look no further than the Jets.
The architects did a good job making the stadium design as industrial and unappealing as the rest of the complex, which houses a race track, an indoor ski slope (which my friend Phil used to frequent when we lived together), the indoor amusement park Nickelodeon Universe, and whatever other Frankensteins of Capitalism are housed inside the aptly named “American Dream”, the second-largest mall in the country. Humans seem to have an innate ability to turn wetlands into Nickelodeon Universes.
The plan was to write this Mushroom Monday on the bus home, but I forgot my computer charger so instead I just stared at the interminable constellations of brake lights for the next six hours as we crawled our way from the 42nd St Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan to South Station in Boston. Now it’s Tuesday morning, and to think what could’ve been if I had my puppies in order. For what it’s worth, it was a holiday yesterday and my boss insisted I take the day off.
Fun Ecological Facts
When we found this mushroom, I was under the impression that P. incarnata was a parasite on the Stereum (in a similar manner to how Naematelia aurantia parasitizes Stereum). You don’t find the former without the latter. Apparently though, the fungus is a decomposer of rotting wood and the relationship this fungus has with Stereum is not fully understood.
We wetted the underside of one of the Stereum to see if it would turn yellow, a diagnostic characteristic feature to help you identify these common crusts to species. It did not turn yellow, which indicated this species was Stereum fasciatum (I wrote about identifying Stereum almost a year ago).
Not only is this fungus a decomposer, it’s a prolific one at that. Researchers out of South Korea tested 120 different white-rot fungal strains to see which would be the best decomposer of “polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons” (PAHs). PAHs are the compounds produced by the incomplete burning of organic matter: anything from engine exhaust to roasted meat to the charred detritus after forest fires.
It turned out that P. incarnata exhibited the highest degradative rate with between 40% to over 90% degradation of PAHs. The researchers determined this was due to the production of three powerful enzymes produced by the fungus. These powerful enzymes could potentially be used for mycoremediation projects on polluted areas, but it’s also just neat to think of how the fungus expertly exudes them every day to break down the cell walls of dead trees.
These mushrooms grow summer through fall in North America, east of the Rockies, with October the most frequent month to find them. The specimen we found was pretty dry, but I imagine it hadn’t been out for more than a month.
Etymology
The genus Phlebia appears to be derived from the Greek phlebos which means “vein” and refers to the vein-like appearance of the fertile surface (the hymenium) of these crusts. The species epithet incarnata comes from the Latin carnis which means “flesh” and the prefix in-, you guessed it, means “in”. The name comes from the bright pink, flesh-like color of the mushroom.
The fungus has changed genera from Merulius to Byssomerulius and landed in Phlebia (for now). DNA sequencing actually suggests the fungus doesn’t belong to any of the three, and IndexFungorum still has the fungus as Byssomerulius incarnatus, but apparently Phlebia is the best placeholder in the interim. “Coral-Pink Byssomerulius” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so I figured I’d use the genus with the fewest syllables for the common name in this article.
Events This Week
The Fall Continental MycoBlitz for 2025 starts on Friday, the 17th. You can send in any fungal specimens you collect on the North American continent to Mycota Labs where they will use DNA barcoding to help identify the mushroom to species. The majority of mushroom species are undescribed, so this is the perfect opportunity to contribute to science and potentially discover a new species.
10AM-Noon, 10/18 Fall in Love with Fungi Festival at Borders Farm in Foster, RI. I get to join a great group of people to promote mushroom education and appreciation.
10/19 Walk with the 300 Committee. Probably won’t be confirmed until Thursday, but if you’re on the Cape and want more information, email saveland@300committee.org with the subject “Mushroom List” and you will be alerted when the details are confirmed.
Five Year Anniversary
On October 12th, 2020, while working as a gardener in Central Park, I sat down at the shared computer terminal in our break room and sent out the first Mushroom Monday. At the time, the email just went out to coworkers in the natural areas crew and the park arborists. My manager at the time, Eric, had encouraged this intellectual curiosity and even made the email group for the first newsletters (which were much shorter because sitting at the computer for too long would draw some sideways stares).
I used to make these very sterile, but the longer I’ve been writing, the more personality I’ve imbued in these missives. Now you get to enjoy my thoughts on Nickelodeon Universe. Regardless, thank you for following along and reading, whether you’ve been here since the park or this is your very first email.
We’ve highlighted nearly 250 different species of mushrooms, all archived at mushroommonday.com (well, archived through August, as my archivist needs a little nudging… however she does a tremendous amount for me and I’m very appreciative of her :)). Thank you again for being here, and here’s to another five years of mushrooms, travels, and hopefully consistent rains,
Aubrey
References:
Kuo, M. (2010, March). Phlebia incarnata. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/phlebia_incarnata.html
Lee AH, Lee H, Heo YM, Lim YW, Kim CM, Kim GH, Chang W, Kim JJ. A proposed stepwise screening framework for the selection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-degrading white rot fungi. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng. 2020 May;43(5):767-783. doi: 10.1007/s00449-019-02272-w. Epub 2020 Jan 14. PMID: 31938872.
https://www.fungusfactfriday.com/145-byssomerulius-incarnatus/
https://www.indexfungorum.org/names/NamesRecord.asp?RecordID=106355