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omphaloid
Terms discussed:
belly-button
(pl. belly-buttons),
omphalinoid
,
omphalodisc
(pl. omphalodiscs),
omphalos
See Also:
cap shape
Image of
Xeromphalina campanella
from
Eugen Gramberg
(1913)
Pilze unserer Heimat
An
omphaloid
mushroom
is one with a central depression, giving the
cap
the appearance of a
belly-button
(the "
omphalos
"). This sort of "inny"
belly-button
has given the name to the
genera
Omphalotus
and
Omphalina
(little
belly-button
), and various
segregates
from
Omphalina
such as
Xeromphalina
and
Chrysomphalina
. The terms can be used in a morphological sense, describing
mushrooms
with an
umbillicate
cap
, or in a taxonomic sense, referring to all the
mushrooms
in these
taxa
.
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Note that the
omphalos
morpheme doesn't always mean an "inny"
belly-button
in
mycology
: the term
omphalodisc
describes the
fruiting body
of a
lichen
in the
genus
Umbilicaria, which has a bump in the center resembling an "outie"
belly-button
.
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Image of
Xeromphalina campanella
from
Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck
(1816 - 1817)
Das System der Pilze und Schwämme
That the term can be misleading is evident from the following picture from
Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck
's (1816 - 1817)
Das System der Pilze und Schwämme
: apparently Nees told his engraver that the central depression looked like a
belly-button
, and by golly the engraver created a
mushroom
with much more of a
belly-button
than any
mushroom
that actually exists.
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