Microglossum viride (Persoon: Fries) Gillet
Champ. de France, Discomycetes: 25. 1879.

Common Name: Green Earth Tongue

• Sporocarp

  Fruiting body 1-4 cm tall, slender, upper third occupied by a fertile "head," the latter club-shaped typically compressed, smooth, sometime grooved, up to 5 mm broad, turquoise-green when fresh fading to dull green; stipe 1-1.5 mm thick, surface granular, colored like the "head" but lighter.

• Spores

  Spores 13-16 x 5-6 µm, elongate-elliptical, kidney-shaped, or subfusoid, not septate, hyaline, smooth, 2-4 oil droplets per spore.

• Habitat

  Solitary to clustered in moss or duff in mixed hardwood/conifer woods; fruiting from late winter to early spring.

• Edibility

  Unknown.

• Comments

  This diminutive earth tongue with a bright blue-green fruiting body is one of the prettiest and unmistakable of spring fungi. Only Chlorociboria aeruginascens, a relatively uncommon cup fungus, which grows on rotting wood, is similarly colored. Related earth tongues in the genera Geoglossum and Trichoglossum are easily distinguished by their blackish hue.

• Other Descriptions and Photos
  • Mark Steinmetz: Microglossum viride (CP)
  • Michael Wood: Microglossum viride (CP)
  • Boleslaw Kuznik -- Hunting for Mushrooms: Microglossum viride (CP)
  • Arora (1986): p. 870 (D), plate 214
  • Arora (1991): p. 214 (CP)
  • Breitenbach & Kränzlin (vol. 1): sp. 137 (D, I, & CP)
  • Jordan: p. 58 (D & CP)
  • Dennis: p. 88 (D)

  (D=Description; I=Illustration; P=Photo; CP=Color Photo)