what do hydnum umbilicatum eat

Well geez, they’re mushrooms. Fungi often exist in relationships with plants or other fungi in order to get their nutrients, but I don’t think of them as eating exactly. This particular mushroom does have teeth though…but it doesn’t chew. The teeth act the same way gills or pores do in other mushrooms, for distributing spores.

Hydnum umbilicatum is the smaller of the two hedgehog mushrooms, and although they don’t eat, I do eat them. In fact, they’re very tasty and if you can find and identify them, they make a great addition to a meal.