This is a very fun paper.
Xiao Ren Ren : The “Little People” of Yunnan by David Arora in 2008. It’s about his visit to Yunnan, China where he encountered edible boletes (mushrooms with spore pores instead of gills) that stained blue and reportedly caused people to see “little people”.
Also on ResearchGate.
“And if I don’t stir-fry [the mushrooms] for ten minutes?”
“Ahhh,” the man said, his eyes bright and mischievous and his wide grin punctuated by a massive, gleaming metal molar. “Well, then of course ‘ni kan xiao ren ren’ (you will see the little people).”
I don’t understand why Arora wouldn’t have collected dry and wet samples of each, sent parts to a lab, and saved parts for later confirmation. Even tiny parts of biomaterial can have the DNA sequenced relatively cheaply these days.
But, regardless, there are many fungal mysteries still to be worked out in the world.