Death Valley National Park is the hottest and driest national park in the United States and also holds the world record for the highest air temperature ever recorded at 134 degrees Fahrenheit. It was recorded on July 10, 1913.
Each year, Death Valley receives an average of around 2.2 inches of rainfall. For contrast, the average amount of rainfall for the U.S. in total was about 30.3 inches in 2020.
In short, Death Valley does not sound like the type of place where mushrooms—which tend to like cool, moist climates—would typically grow.
Death Valley experienced extremely rare rainfall when, on August 5, the national park received three quarters of its annual average precipitation in a few hours—1.7 inch.
According to the National Park Service (NPS), the rainfall seen in the region this summer means there is a possibility that a type of desert mushroom could emerge from the valley’s dried mud ahead of winter.
The mushroom is known as Podaxis pistillaris, commonly known as the desert shaggy mane, and it thrives in arid deserts after soaking rains.
A post on the Death Valley National Park Facebook account on October 20 read: “Since the most recent historic summer rainstorms and flash flooding, there’s a possibility of more desert shaggy mane making appearances in the dried mud cracks of Death Valley this Fall.”
The stalked mushroom has an oval-shaped cap that splits and falls off after it matures. This releases spores—reproductive cells of mushrooms that allow them to spread—which are carried by the wind to another location.
Carol Fields, a biological science technician at Death Valley National Park, told Newsweek: “I suspect that with any decent summer/fall rainfall event, we will see Podaxis pistillaris bolt widely throughout Death Valley National Park.
“It does not appear to be rare for fungi to grow in arid desert environments. I don’t know of other species similar in structure to the desert shaggy mane but an interesting study that took place in the Chihuahuan Desert discussed the interrelationships of the microbial community in a grassland. The study observed that the microbial community was able to self-correct under normal climatological shifts.
“Extreme variability might alter the ability to self-correct and potentially cause a detrimental cascading effect on soil systems and ecosystem processes.”
In September, Michael Mann, a climate expert and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, told Newsweek that both heat waves and extreme rainfall are phenomena linked to climate change.
