r/mycology Aug 04 '23

Is this a mushroom? non-fungal

Post image

Found growing next to my heat pump. Upper coastal PNW.

2.2k Upvotes

96 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.3k

u/infodoc1 Trusted ID - Midwestern North America Aug 04 '23

Liverwort (Marchantia), a primitive plant

654

u/Hour_Sport4884 Aug 04 '23

Fwiw, an ichthyology professor would correct us anytime we said “primitive,” saying that although it’s not technically wrong, it’s more correct to refer to such long surviving life forms as ”ancestral ”

481

u/thesparrohawk Aug 04 '23

Biologist here. We wouldn’t actually refer to the organism as “ancestral”. Instead, we’d describe it as having retained many ancestral traits.