An historic garden has discovered a fungus so rare it has to be kept in a cage to protect it from collectors – who claim it can help fight dementia and cancer. The unusual Bearded Tooth mushroom was spotted by a volunteer at The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.
They then discovered another example of the fungus in its ‘bug hotel’ - known as Buggingham Palace. Staff received advice from local and national fungi experts on the mystical mushroom - and its appeal to curious collectors.
Now the football-sized fungi has been caged off to protect it from people who may want to forage the mushroom for its supposed healing powers. Research has shown it contains compounds that apparently act against memory loss, depression, dementia, anxiety, cancer, and neurological disorders.
It also plays an important role in the woodland ecosystem by breaking down dead wood. Toby Davies, the wildlife co-ordinator at the gardens, said: '“Usually this mushroom is found in dense woodland where members of the public wouldn’t see it.
“This one has grown on the tail end of a log which looks across a playground and it’s so big you can see it across the field. I put the cage up - the main emphasis was partially because Buggingham Palace borders a playground and the other thing is that it’s edible.
“Nine out of ten people wouldn’t know what it is, but the cage is mainly there to prevent people from tampering. It’s protected under Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, making it illegal to intentionally pick, uproot or destroy – it's the highest level of protection.
“Most of the time, when there’s these fungi around, there’s only 15 reports across the whole country – here we’ve got two within the same vicinity of one another. We saw it initially maybe a week and a bit ago, it was spotted by one of our volunteers and he was the first to spot it and show it to me and at that point we didn’t know how significant it was.”
The Bearded Tooth Fungus (Hericium erinaceus), also known as the Lions Mane Mushroom, is under the highest level of legal protection in the UK – making it one of only four species of fungi listed under Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
The fungus was discovered last week.
