Moose Antlers

Moose Antlers is one of the most bizarre cup fungi of eastern North America. Instead of a bowl, it produces clusters of upright, elongated, spoon- or ear-shaped blades up to 13 cm tall, curled inward along their length so that each retains a trace of the cup ancestry. Several blades rise together from a single hard, blackish underground mass, and the resulting tuft genuinely resembles a set of small antlers or a bunch of rabbit ears pushed up through the leaf litter.

Wynnea is a small genus in the Sarcoscyphaceae, the family that also includes the scarlet cups (Sarcoscypha). Its members share bright to dark reddish-brown fertile surfaces and tough, elastic tissue, but Wynnea is unique in its erect ear-like form and its underground sclerotium.

It is an uncommon find and a memorable one — nothing else in North American woodland looks remotely like it.

Fruiting body

A cluster of 2–10 erect, tongue-, spoon- or ear-shaped blades, each 4–13 cm tall and 2–5 cm wide, tapering to a narrow stalk-like base. Each blade is deeply channelled or curved inward so that the fertile inner face is partly enclosed, with the tips often flaring or twisting outward. The whole cluster arises from a common base.

Inner (fertile) surface

The concave inner face is smooth and rich orange-brown, cinnamon or reddish-brown, sometimes darkening toward the tip.

Outer surface

The convex outer face is much darker — dark purplish brown to nearly blackish — and distinctly roughened with small warts, granules or pimple-like projections, a strong textural contrast with the smooth interior.

Base and flesh

The fused bases run down into a hard, dense, blackish underground sclerotium-like mass, often 2–5 cm across, embedded in soil and leaf mould; excavating it is worthwhile as it confirms the genus. The flesh is tough, rubbery and elastic, pale to brownish, without colour change when cut. A spore deposit is brownish, and the spores are large, elongated and longitudinally ribbed.

Moose Antlers grows on rich, moist soil and deep leaf mould in mature deciduous and mixed forest, usually in shaded ravines, along stream banks and on slopes with abundant humus. It is associated with hardwood stands containing oak, beech, maple, hickory and basswood.

Fruiting occurs in summer into early autumn, roughly July through September, following periods of steady rainfall. It is essentially an eastern North American species, ranging from the Appalachians and the Great Lakes region south and west across the eastern deciduous forest, with related Wynnea species reported from Asia and Central America. It is nowhere common, and finding it is usually a matter of luck in old-growth-quality woodland.

Wynnea americana is generally treated as saprotrophic on buried organic matter, humus and woody debris in rich forest soil, though the biology of the genus remains poorly understood and a root association has not been ruled out. The hard blackish underground mass at the base functions like a sclerotium, storing resources and allowing the fungus to persist between fruiting seasons and to invest suddenly in a large, tall cluster of fruiting bodies.

The erect, channelled form raises the fertile surfaces well above the litter layer, exposing them to moving air. Spores are discharged from operculate asci along the concave inner faces, and the ribbed spore ornamentation is a family characteristic shared with the scarlet cups.

Wynnea sparassoides is the closest relative, but its blades are shorter, more crowded and cabbage- or cauliflower-like in overall arrangement rather than forming distinct upright ears. Other Wynnea species outside North America differ in size, colour and spore ornamentation.

The earth tongues (Geoglossum, Trichoglossum) are superficially similar upright dark blades but are much narrower, black, not channelled into an ear shape, and lack an underground mass. Otidea species, the split earcups, are ear-shaped too but are shorter, thinner-fleshed, ochre to tan or brown, split down one side, and grow singly or in small groups without a hard blackish basal mass. Xylaria club fungi are attached directly to wood and have a hard, carbon-black interior rather than rubbery pale flesh.