Hydnellum peckii,the unusual appearance of the young fruit bodies has earned the species several descriptive common names, including strawberries and cream, the bleeding Hydnellum, the bleeding tooth fungus, the red-juice tooth, and the Devil’s tooth.The fruit bodies typically have a funnel-shaped cap with a white edge, although the shape can be highly variable. Young, moist fruit bodies can “bleed” bright red guttation droplets that contains a pigment known to have anticoagulated properties similar to heparin.
What happens if we eat it?
The Bleeding Tooth Fungus,the fungus receives fixed carbon from the host and, in return, improves the host plant’s mineral absorption. Despite its horrific appearance, the mushroom isn’t poisonous . It is still wouldn’t recommend eating it – the taste has been described as very bitter pepper.
At its best, this is a very beautiful fungus… but unfortunately it is rarely seen at its best and often grows embedded with plant stems and debris. Although variable in shape and colour, fruitbodies of Hydnellum peckii invariably have pinkish tones. Young caps are often (but not always) decorated with bright red liquid droplets that exude from the upper surface. Particularly attractive when solitary, the fruitbodies more often occur in small groups that merge and become fused at the caps and sometimes also along their stems.
Where we can find it??
The Devil’s Tooth is a woodland mushroom rarely if ever found in Britain except in Scotland and then most often in the Caledonian Forest, where in some years it is abundant but still fairly localised. The beautiful specimens shown on this page were seen in Scotland’s Abernethy Forest. All official records for this species on the Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI) are from Scotland. This hydnoid fungus occurs also in parts of northern mainland Europe and in North America.
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