Found a few weeks ago, always wondered when these came up in my area.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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Mycology
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Cool! I just read their wiki page and it says
Snowbank fungus is a new term for me. Not sure yet what makes a fungus thrive through snow. Maybe they have anti-freeze proteins?
Does your area get a lot of snow?
They don't grow in snow while temperatures are still freezing or anything, they grow using the moisture from melting snow once the weather starts to warm up. They just pop up so quickly that you'll often find them poking out of snowbanks which haven't fully melted.
I see. So it is not necessarily that their mycelium are better at surviving the freezing temperatures, but rather that either they fruit quicker once conditions are acceptable or that their fruiting bodies are more cold tolerant. Thanks, it's interesting.