Rare mushroom that hisses is spotted along trail at Texas state park, officials say

If you find yourself near one of the world’s rarest mushrooms as it unfurls, officials say you might be able to hear its “strange hissing noise” as it releases a “hazy cloud of spores.”

This mushroom, aptly nicknamed the “Devil’s Cigar,” is believed to have been seen by only a few hundred people, according to research scientist Bob O’Kennon with the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.

Most recently, someone spotted the mushroom — named the Texas Star, with Latin name Chorioactis geaster — along a trail at Inks Lake State Park in Hill Country, about 70 miles northwest of Austin.

“The rare and rather unique, star-shaped fungus is highly selective about where it grows, mostly attaching to decaying cedar elm stumps in the central and northern parts of Texas,” park officials said in a Feb. 5 Facebook post.

“The distribution (of) the ‘Texas star’ tends to puzzle scientists,” officials continued, adding that the only other country where the mushroom has been spotted was an “odd sighting” in the area of Kyushu, Japan.

It was also seen in Oklahoma for the first time in January 2017, according to the University of Central Oklahoma.

The mushroom typically emerges in late fall “as a dark brown, fuzzy capsule 3-4 inches in length,” resembling a cigar, according to state wildlife officials.

“As this fungus matures, it splits open from its apex and forms a good-sized, brightly colored star, and naturally, we have always thought it made sense for it to become the state fungus of the Lone Star State,” researcher Harold W. Keller told the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.

Texas Star was officially named the state mushroom in 2021.

It is not considered edible, according to the Chron.

This story was originally published February 6, 2023 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Rare mushroom that hisses is spotted along trail at Texas state park, officials say."