Cap up to 3 cm, pale grey, sticky and grooved to the center; a hair-thin translucent stipe. Cap and gills glow green (peak 525 nm); the stipe does not.
- Size
- Cap up to 3 cm across; stipe 6 to 30 mm tall and 0.3 to 1 mm thick.
- Smell
- Strong, of ammonia.
- Where it grows
- On fallen twigs, branches and bark in Japan, Taiwan, Polynesia, Java, Sri Lanka, Australia and Brazil.
- When
- In the rainy season, when the air is near 88% humidity.
- Look-alikes
- Other glowing bonnets, such as Mycena discobasis and Mycena margarita.
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- Family
- Mycenaceae
- Order
- Agaricales
- Bioluminescence
- Cap and gills glow green; the stipe barely does. The glow peaks at 27 °C, 25 to 39 hours after the first buds, and is gone by about 72 hours.
- Chemistry
- Trans-p-hydroxycinnamic acid sets off the light reaction.
- Spores
- White print; spores 7 to 8.5 by 5 to 6 µm.
- First collected
- In 1854 on the Bonin Islands, by the botanist Charles Wright.
Commonly associated with
- Night forests
- Islands of Japan
- Living light
- Folk names
- Yakoh-take, "night-light mushroom", in Japanese; "Green Pepe" on the Bonin Islands.
In folklore
In Japan it is named for its light. On the Hachijō and Bonin islands it grows mostly on the dead leaf stalks of the pygmy date palm, and only when the air is wet enough: a forest floor that glows after the rains.
Curious fact
Samoa put it on a postage stamp in 1985.
Folklore and traditional associations. They vary between sources and are beliefs, not scientific claims.