Rhizopogon pinyonensis

    False truffles are both abundant in New Mexico and unpredictable. Some years they occur in large numbers and others scarcely at all. In 1967 we had an usually wet year with excellent collecting. Ken Harrison, a Canadian mycologist studying with Alexander Smith at the University of Michigan, had been on the west coast and had come to New Mexico to evaluate the hydnaceous fungi (tooth fungi) we had in the region. Tooth fungi were his specialty, but Ken was collecting mushrooms, cup fungi, and false truffles as well.
    We traveled to various areas in northern New Mexico and found a host of oddities, but perhaps the most incredible collections we made were just north and east of Santa Fe on the Ski Basin road near Hyde Park. This area subsequently has built up and our old mushroom grounds are gone now, but at the time it was all undisturbed pinyon-Juniper woodland.
    We began to find half emergent round, golf ball sized false truffles with a very thick peridium (skin). By scratching and digging we quickly put together an enormous collection of these false truffles. It took Ken some time to assimilate all the data on this huge collection but it was clear that this was not in Alexander Smith's treatment of the genus (???). Subsequently it was named Rhizopogon pinyonensis and aptly so. At the time I noticed partially eaten fruiting bodies of this Rhizopogon but none of us were certain just what was consuming them. Over the years I've found that, at least in our area in the pinyon-juniper, the major animal that eats false truffles is the cottontail rabbit. Squirrels, chipmunks, deer and bear are all known to eat false truffles, but I've seen no references to rabbits.
    In the pinyon-juniper, well was from Ponderosa Pine and Gambel Oak, there is little in the way of small mammals but mice, occasionally gray foxes, coyotes, badgers, and transient skunks and raccoons. However, rabbits are common in these eating Mutton Grass, Sedges, LISFLE leaf rice grass, yucca leaves and paddle cactus (Opuntia species). The digging areas are not so extensive as those of squirrels, but cottontails seem extremely effective at locating the false truffles and rarely does one find a specimen overlooked. The exception to the rule is a summer season such as those of 1967, 1968, 1972, and 1991 when the woods were full of Rhizopogons and no rabbit could eat them all.

Bill Isaacs
1997-01-12