We’re on month two of fungi of the month already! How exciting, and we’ve got a bright and exciting little fungi this month. The Ruby Elf Cup!

I chose this fungi because it is one of the few species about in the colder months. Near where I live I usually find them in Febuary popping up at the same time as the snow drops, heralding the end of winter. Coming across one of these bright little cups, though they’re sometimes hard to spot often amongst leaves and moss, is such a treat!

**Common English Names:** Ruby Elf Cup, Crimson Elf Cup, fairies’ bath,
**Scientific name:**
*Sarcosypha coccinea*
**Welsh name:** Cwpan Robin Goch (Red Robin Cup), cwpan mwsog (moss cup)
**Season:** December - April
**Where found:** Grows on dead hard wood, small twigs and larger logs, often found burried in moss/leaf litter. In super damp areas like river valleys.
**Size:** 2-8cm across, 3cm high
**Edibility:** Mixed opinions. Some sources say edible when cooked, some say inedible, some say fine if you only eat a small amount. Who knows!
**Lookalikes:** Scarlet Elf Cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca) is almost identical and can only be set apart with a microscope.
Orange peel fungi (*Aleuria aurantia) is also similar but distinctly orange.*

Key ID features:

The clue is in the name! These fungi are cupped shaped, bright red and smooth on the inside. Usually paler red/pink/orange and felty/downy on the outside. They have a small stem and are relatively firm, not jelly like or slimy. Their spore print is white.

They grow mostly on a variety of hardwood twigs and branches that are burried in mud and moss, usually one or two per twig. If you get really lucky you might find a larger stick or even a log covered in them as I did this month!

A lookalike!

There are two fungi whose names are often used interchangeably, and for much of history have come under the same name. That’s The Ruby Elf Cup and the Scarlet Elf Cup. The only true way to tell the difference between the two is by a microscope. The hairs on the outside of their cups are slightly different, as are their spores.

Also according to First, Nature Scarlet elf cups prefer sycamore and willows, Rubys are partial to beech and elm. But both appear on hazel… and I’ve even seen references to them growing on rose! Decomposing twigs are hard to tell apart so this distinction isn’t particuarly helpful, or probably super proven.

I haven’t ID’d to the microscopic level any of my photos so take them all as Sarcosypha sp.

Blow on me!

Ruby and Scarlet elf cups are both part of the “spore shooting” fungi. As the name suggests these fungi will quite literally shoot their spores, at great speed and range for such a small organism.

If you blow on an elf cup you may, shortly after, see release a huge puff of spores. Apparently this is also pretty audible if you hold it close to your years. I’ve never managed to get a huge puff out of them, just the smell of spores up my nostrils as I accidentally breathe them in.

Interestingly it’s actually the change in temperature that triggers the spore release.

A Beacon of spring

Ruby elf cups have a pretty unique fruiting season of December - April, but I usually find them in early to mid February, pupping their bright red cups out at around the same time as the snow drops, and sometimes the crocuses. Adding their colour to the prelude of full spring colours happening in a month or so.

To me, they therefore they represent the end of winter and the start of spring. It’s such a treat seeing these little bright red beacons, a symbol of spring to come as the long winter is making me weary.

One field guide - A Guide to Kansas Mushrooms (1993) [1], calls the Elf cup "a welcome sight after a long, desperate winter and ... the harbinger of a new year of mushrooming".

Also an extract form Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal (1851)[2] reads: “With what delight have I seen these pretty things beaming out on me from some mossy bank in the month of March, and laid them in my little basket by the side of the first violets of the season, and perhaps two or three pale primroses—the result of patient searching among the leaves—and a few of the long tassels of the hazel—all tokens of the sweet spring”

So I’m definitely not alone in these thoughts!

Culture, history and folklore:

You can use the inside of an elf cup as a lip and/or lip tint! It’s a lovely red colour for some mushroom makeup
The scientific name of the Scarlet Elf Cup - Sarcosypha austriaca, mean’s fleshy drinking bown from Austria. Confusingly for the Ruby Elf cup Sarcosypha coccinea means scarlet fleshy drinking bowl. Yum.
Both its common and scientific name reference the folklore that these cup-shaped fungi were used as cups for elves to drink morning dew from, or as fairies’ baths. [3]

In the North of England, in the early 20th century these fungi were sold with moss as table decorations [4]
This fungi has reportedly been used by Oneida people, and probably other Haudenosaunee peoples medicinally. Including in the belly buttons of newborns who’s umbilical cords weren’t healing, and under bandages. [5]
They’re a source of food for rodents and slugs. [6]

References:

[1]Abel D; Horn B; Kay R (1993). A Guide to Kansas Mushrooms. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 238

[2]Chambers' Edinburgh Journal 1851-11-15: Vol 16 Iss 411 p 315

[3] Sandra Lawrence (2022). The Magic of Musrhooms, p 73

[4] E W Swanton(1909), Fungi and how to know them : an introduction to field mycology, p 182

[5]Seaver FJ. (1928). The North American Cup-Fungi (Operculates). New York, New York: Self published. pp. 191–2.

[6] Brown RP. (1980). "Observations on Sarcoscypha coccinea and Disciotis venosa in North Wales during 1978–1979". Bulletin of the British Mycological Society. 14 (2): 130–5

If you missed last month’s fungi we looked at the charismatic Jelly Ear. Who should be March’s fungi of the month?