It started with a seed coat and a little fuzz.
At West Virginia University (WVU), Corinne Hazel, an undergraduate major in environmental microbiology, examined morning glory plants for signs of protective chemicals. She wasn’t looking for new drugs or anything psychedelic. But nestled in the folds of a tiny seed coat was a hint of white fuzz.
That fuzz turned out to be a fungus that scientists had been seeking since the 1930s. And this included Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized LSD.
Hofmann offered the world LSD in the late 1930s by modifying a compound called lysergic acid, which he extracted from the ergot fungus Claviceps purpurea. That fungus grows on rye and other grains and is well-known for producing ergot alkaloids, a group of chemicals that can be toxic or medicinal depending on the dose.
However, Hofmann also suspected that morning glory plants contained similar compounds. He believed there might be a hidden fungus living in symbiosis with these plants — one that was responsible for producing those LSD-like chemicals. But that fungus was never found.
Until now.
“I’m lucky to have stumbled into this opportunity,” Hazel said. “People have been looking for this fungus for years, and one day, I look in the right place, and there it is.”
She named it Periglandula clandestina, a nod to its secretive nature.
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The Missing Link in Morning Glory
In the decades after he discovered LSD, Hofmann suspected that morning glory plants owed their psychedelic properties to a fungus — one that made chemicals similar to the ones he had modified.
“Morning glories contain high concentrations of similar lysergic acid derivatives that give them their psychedelic activities,” said Daniel Panaccione, Hazel’s faculty mentor and a professor at WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
In a previous study published in Communications Biology, scientists reported 53 of the 210 morning glory species they tested had ergot-containing seeds.
Hofmann and others searched the plants for a fungus related to Claviceps purpurea, the rye-dwelling microbe that produces ergot alkaloids, a group of potent compounds with powerful biological effects. But for decades, that fungus remained a phantom.
Hazel found it almost by accident.
“We had a ton of plants lying around and they had these tiny little seed coats,” she said. “We noticed a little bit of fuzz in the seed coat. That was our fungus.”
With Panaccione’s guidance, Hazel extracted DNA from the fuzz and sent it for sequencing. The results confirmed what generations of chemists and botanists had only suspected: the morning glory harbored a previously unknown species of ergot-producing fungus.
“Sequencing a genome is a significant thing,” Panaccione said. “It’s amazing for a student.”
A Fungus With a Bright Future
Periglandula clandestina doesn’t just solve a historical mystery. It might help shape future medicine.
Ergot alkaloids are biologically powerful — and deeply complex. In high doses, they’re toxic to humans and livestock. But when refined or altered, they’ve been used to treat migraines, control bleeding, and manage neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease.
“Many things are toxic. But if you administer them in the right dosage or modify them, they can be useful pharmaceuticals,” said Panaccione. “By studying them, we may be able to figure out ways to bypass the side effects.”
And Hazel’s fungus might be especially good at this. Early evidence suggests that P. clandestina can produce ergot alkaloids efficiently and in large quantities — qualities that could one day make it valuable for drug development.
Hazel is now focused on culturing the slow-growing microbe and exploring whether related fungal symbionts hide within other morning glory species. There could be a whole underground world of psychedelic-producing fungi waiting to be uncovered.
For now, though, she’s taking a moment to reflect on how much came from a chance observation.
“I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done at WVU,” she said.
Panaccione agrees. “It’s about students recognizing the opportunities, seizing them, and having the skill and the brain power to bring this work to fruition.”
And sometimes, all it takes is a little fuzz.
The new findings appeared in the journal Mycologia.
