Elaphomyces muricatus. Credit: Michael Castellano from Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Elaphomyces muricatus Fr.

Elaphomyces muricatus is a common fungus forming large, truffle-like hypogeic fruitbodies. It is most frequently reported from Europe and Asia, but also recorded in North America, preferring acidic forest soils across a wide gradient of temperature zones from warm biomes to the boreal ones (Větrovský et al. 2020). It is ectomycorrhizal with both coniferous and deciduous trees and can be locally highly abundant. It is found typically in places with elevated N deposition (van der Linde et al. 2018). The species was reported as arsenic hyperaccumulator (Braeuer et al. 2018). The sporocarp for this genome were collected in a mountainous coniferous forest in the Bavarian Forest, Germany, Central Europe with dominant Fagus sylvatica.