Umbrella mushrooms are often green, brown, or mottled and as such aren’t highly coveted by the shroom world, but this specimen displayed by Iwarna Aquafarm in Singapore stopped our scrolling fingers in their tracks. Discosoma neglecta is a corallimorph that calls the Caribbean it’s home. It stuffs into cracks among coral rubble and is found in areas with slow flow and relatively dim light. It’s easy to care for in the aquarium (as long as nutrients don’t drop too low, and light is not too bright,) and is easily characterized by those squared-off tentacle tips that give it a jaggedy, gear wheel-like appearance.
In the days of white lighting, this species will have been relegated to a generic mushroom at best but royal blue LEDs and trained eyes by collectors are now producing specimens with red and pink on top of the green. The insane specimen we feature here that Iwarna Aquafarm calls the Psychedelic Rainbow Umbrella is the best example we have seen, displaying pink, purple, blue, orange, and green, and what makes it more unusual is that it managed to travel from the Caribbean to a supplier in Singapore, an island state bordered by the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, with much closer supplies of other mushrooms from the Indo Pacific. As you might expect this mushroom sold as soon as it was offered for sale, but as of now, Ricordea florida will not be the only Atlantic mushroom polyps we will be hunting for from the Caribbean.
