Mycoclelandia bulundari

Overview

Mycoclelandia bulundari is a hypogeous fungus, one that fruits underground, of Australia's desert regions. It grows to about 10 cm across. It is known from the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The catalogue calls it the Australian desert truffle. The English label is a modern one; the early records give no common name.

Food use

The fungus was cooked in hot sand and ashes before it was eaten. Its taste is described as a strong mushroom flavour. The catalogue records it as a documented Aboriginal cooked truffle-like food.

Other recorded uses

Its fluid was reportedly applied to sores and sore eyes as a medicine, and that it was rubbed into the armpits and into the hair. No further detail on these uses is given.

Gathering, habitat and season

The records do not describe how the fungus was located or harvested. It places the species in desert areas but gives no habitat detail or fruiting season. The soil-cracking method that the same page describes belongs to a different truffle, Choiromyces aboriginum, and is not a method for this species.

Identification and sources

The early European accounts are the main written record. Because few details were recorded, the identity of the fungus named in many reports is uncertain. The catalogue marks the record as historical and needing modern verification, and it notes limited modern food-safety evidence.

The source is the chapter by Arpad Kalotas in Fungi of Australia, Volume 1B, which notes that much Aboriginal fungal knowledge may have been lost or is still undocumented.

Safety

The catalogue records limited modern food-safety evidence for this species. The sources read here do not establish a safe preparation or a modern edibility verdict, and this page gives none.