Carlgren's Mushroom

Care at a glance

Overview

Care is standard easy corallimorph fare, with low to moderate light, gentle flow and a shaded spot low on the rock. Like other Caribbean Discosoma it grows and splits slowly compared with Pacific mushrooms, even when fed. It is almost never offered by name, so most polyps arrive unannounced on Caribbean live rock or mixed mushroom rocks.

In the wild

Carlgren's mushroom is a small Caribbean corallimorph found on rock and rubble from Florida through the Caribbean at roughly 3 to 18 meters. The disc carries numerous small pseudotentacles that fork at the tips, becoming more branched as the polyp grows, which is where the field guide name forked tentacle corallimorph comes from. Polyps stay small, usually 2 to 5 cm across.

Good to know

Discosoma carlgreni is a corallimorph in the family Discosomidae, first described in 1922 as Rhodactis carlgreni before being moved to Discosoma. It is told apart from its Caribbean relatives by the smaller, more numerous lappets on the disc margin and the forked pseudotentacles. Zooxanthellae supply most of its energy, topped up by fine particle capture.

Did you know

The species honors Oskar Carlgren, the Swedish zoologist whose work still underpins much of what is known about sea anemones and corallimorphs.

Common questions

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