[The Hwankyung Ilbo] The National Bio Resources Museum (Director Bae Yeon-jae), a member of the Ministry of Environment, said it recently discovered "Dongwoori Mushroom" at Gayasan National Park for the first time in Korea.

The Dongwoori Mushroom is a mushroom that has an egg-shaped spore pouch inside a bird's nest-shaped body. 

The National Biological Resources Agency is continuing to investigate and excavate mushrooms for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of biological resources.

Based on the results of the survey over the past 10 years, the National Bio Resources Agency selected the Gaya Mountain area, which lacks mushroom information compared to other regions, as a priority.

The first survey of Gayasan National Park was conducted from 2017 to 2020, and as a result, more than 1,000 samples were secured. 

According to the study, 17 unrecorded mushrooms such as "Nidularia deformis" and "Ulleungus" that have not been reported in Korea and 152 additional species whose habitat has not been known in Gayasan National Park.

Gayasan National Park is a well-formed valley area where the humidity, which is important for mushroom growth, is well maintained and coniferous and broadleaf trees are well combined. 

The 152 species included various colored and shaped mushrooms such as Terana caerulea that seemed to wrap branches in dark turquoise fur, and Thin ear mushrooms with the shape of ears.

The survey found 312 different kinds of mushrooms ranging from 2mm to 30cm, including Sparassis crispa mushrooms that make firecracker-shaped porcelain pieces at Gayasan Mountain, Amanita pantherina mushrooms that should never be eaten, and the Geastrum sessile with an interesting name.

Meanwhile, the National Bio-Resource Museum has published a book titled "Mushrooms on the Korean Peninsula: Gayasan National Park," which contains 267 kinds of video data, habitat and ecological information, microstructure and sample information obtained from the study.

This book is designed as a small booklet so that mushroom researchers and interested citizens can carry it around and easily find it on the site, and the Resource Center plans to publish a series of mushroom books in other national parks in the future.

"Mushrooms are easy to meet in the forest, but because mushroom accidents are continuously reported, we made a blueprint to make them easier to find," said Bae Yeon-jae, head of the National Bio Resources Center. "We hope that this book will help us understand mushrooms as a more friendly biological resource and raise awareness of biodiversity."