Honey Shrooms

Honey shrooms are a prolific fungus that grows in Lotus Land near Symbiopolis. It is heavily sought after by Scroungers for its use as a food product and as an ingredient in Lotus Honey.

Subspecies

Honey shrooms have the peculiarity of being the only known fungi with a dimorphic gender expression - that is, displaying two gender phenotype subspecies. This gender expression is vastly different than a sex difference, since mushrooms can have up to 20,000 distinct genetic sexes.

Pleurulaceae panamora andrium

Male-type honey shrooms, known as honey pots, are smaller and brown or tan, with a tall, dome-like cap. This cap produces a sweet liquid, which attracts insects to them. As the insects feed on the liquid, the mushroom releases microscopic spores, which stick to the insects. This allows the male-type honey shrooms to spread far and wide.

Pleurulaceae panamora gynium

Female-type honey shrooms, known as honey pits, are larger and a cream tan or off-white, with slightly concave caps. This forms a shallow dip where macroscopic sticky spores wait for dew or rainfall to create a water source. When small animals and insects drink the water, the spores stick to them.


Despite the male and female labels, honey shrooms do not reproduce sexually.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Combining the sweet liquid of the honey pots and the large, sticky spores of the honey pits creates Shroom Honey. The rapid growth of the mushrooms, and the difficulty in extracting the relative substances in the wild, makes it most effecient for honey shrooms to be harvested whole and processed in the city proper.

Ecology and Habitats

Honey shrooms thrive in Lotus Land, where the folliage constantly creates a bed of rotting flora and the regular rainfall speeds the decay.

Scientific Name

Pleurulaceae panamora

Geographic Distribution

• Lotus Land

Honey pots

Honey pits