The blue cup fungi

Originally Published on Substack in Oct of ‘23

The mushroom that eludes me is called a cup. Specifically, It’s a blue elf cup, Chlorociboria aeruginascens, or possibly Chlorociboria aeruginosa (I’m not sure because they are indistinguishable to the human eye). I find the dyed wood all over the place in the form of short, stubby branches that have fallen off trees.

If you live in the northeast of the United States, chances are you walk right past fallen branches of dyed wood that stand out as a more mythical blue, near cobalt, in the mix of greens and browns. The wood has that stain because the fungi create a unique compound, Xylindein. Like many names identifying our natural world, it sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel.

I brought these branches home years before I knew this blue indicated a fruiting body might emerge. Perhaps the park service had been marking trail signs, or it was a piece to a lost art project, but that’s not been the case. This striking blue pigment is all the work of fungi. It’s comforting to know that people have been creating art with this blue-green stained wood for generations. In some way, I’m connected to other people who have enjoyed spending time in the woods, delighting in the unusual. Perhaps those people were also finding solace under the canopy away from the stressors at home or work. Or, maybe they like me, often wander in the woods as a sort of healthy procrastination from the creative projects that need work.

Chlorociboria aeruginascens by Katie Crawford

This past Saturday, I picked up the small blue branch that I saw from a distance, and with the wet weather and rain, I felt a huge smile split across my face; the fungus was fruiting. The teeny turquoise cups were visible against the darker blue wood. One of my fellow fungi-obsessed friends has said she finds them often. I have not been so lucky, and however ordinary they may be to someone with a trained eye, at this moment, they may as well have been a unicorn.

I’ve been walking in the woods for years and never met these fungi under the right conditions. I try not to think about all times that I may have walked right past them completely unaware. This time, upon finding the blue elf cups, I erupted with childlike joy over something so small. And, with the group I was leading, I was able to witness that excitement mirrored in the faces of others.

Fungi are fascinating in that the potential for the mushroom to emerge is there all along, but the conditions must be correct for the fruiting body to appear (in this case, the small blue cups). The same goes for us, allowing ourselves the time to roll an idea around in our head before showing it to the world, to think things over, and work them out. We have control over when we decide conditions are optimal, but we often make excuses to avoid the action that scares us.

I convince myself that I should wait until I’ve gone for another long walk, or prioritized another work meeting over a moment of creative inspiration. I tell myself that I should be better educated and more qualified. I turn on the tv and avoid the writing because I’m afraid that it’s not good (and never will be). Sharing my work, even work that I love, feels like something painful that could wait another day.

I’m grateful for this recent meeting with Chlorociboria aeruginascens to remind me that I too can reveal a small part of myself, and maybe, it might be exactly what someone has been looking for. Even if that only someone, is me.

“Blue Elf Cup” photo by Katie Crawford