Can YOU tell what it is? How a scientist tricked Kew Gardens into displaying a ‘fungus’ 60 years ago

A respected British scientist tricked Kew Gardens into exhibiting a fake ‘mold’ more than half a century ago, and the ‘species’ is still in the collection.

Richard Dennis, the former head of mycology at Kew in London, described a sample of unusual spherules as a new species of fungus in a 1962 research paper.

However, Professor Dennis knew that the three crumpled objects – sent to Kew by members of the public in England and Africa – were anything but.

Below is the original one shipped from Lancashire in 1953 which looks a lot like a truffle, but can you guess what it really is?

Professor Dennis, who died in 2003 and was known for his sharp sense of humor, misled his entire scientific community by keeping the true identity quiet, though he did drop important hints in his research paper.

The three examples – from left, East Africa (1962), Lancashire (1953) and Kent (1971) – are still housed at Kew

If you’re still having trouble making out what it is from the photo, here’s a big clue.

Professor Dennis gave his ‘species’ the following name – Golfballia ambusta, which translates from Latin to ‘scorched golf ball’!

Professor Dennis knew these were golf balls, but instead of letting his colleagues know, he added them as a new species and wrote a tongue-in-cheek research paper about them.

The paper, published in 1962 in the Journal of the Kew Guild, was entitled ‘A Remarkable New Genus of Phalloids in Lancashire and East Africa’.

Referring to the true nature of the objects, he said: ‘The unopened fruiting body clearly resembles certain small hard but elastic globules used by the Caledonians in certain tribal rituals, practiced in all seasons of the year in enclosures of partially mowed grass. set aside for that.

‘As with other phalloids, there is a strong odor and a distinctive odour, in this case not unpleasant and independently identified by several observers as reminiscent of old or heated India rubber.

‘Taste not registered but probably mild; the fruit bodies are probably not poisonous, but their texture may prove to be inedible.’

Side by side an unburned golf ball and the burnt golf ball sent to Kew from Lancashire somehow scorched

The balls are thought to have been lost to golfers before being unwittingly burned in bonfires and later rediscovered by members of the public.

Professor Richard Dennis (pictured) was head of mycology at Kew in London for over 20 years

Another nine years after the paper was published, in 1971, a third burnt golf ball found in Kent arrived in Kew’s mail.

Despite being clearly stated to have been found ‘on the edge of a fire’ in woods between Farnborough and Downe, it was nevertheless added to the collection.

The three Golfballia ambusta specimens are still in Kew’s Fungarium, although the collection is unfortunately not open to the public.

Academics disagree on whether the specimens should be kept there, but because the “species” has been added to the collection, “it will stay there forever,” a Kew spokesperson told MailOnline.

Nathan Smith, former fungarium operations manager at Kew, said he would be tempted to take the specimens out of the fungarium and put them on display elsewhere.

Pictured is the Kent copy. Despite being clearly stated to have been found ‘on the edge of a fire’ in woodlands between Farnborough and Downe, it continues to be added to the collection

Smith said Golfballia ambusta “stops being funny and just gets confusing” when kept among a large collection of true specimens.

However, fungarium collection manager Lee Davies said Golfballia takes up a miniscule amount of space in the fungarium and so might as well be preserved.

“It was originally submitted as a serious identification inquiry, so it has some validity to keep it in,” he said.