The termite mushroom (Termitomyces spp.) is a wild, seasonal delicacy prized across sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia — a fleshy pale mushroom that erupts from the mounds of fungus-growing termites at the start of the rains. Its caps range from a few centimetres to enormous dinner-plate proportions (one African species, Termitomyces titanicus, is the largest edible mushroom on earth, with caps up to a metre wide), and almost all share a distinctive sharp point at the centre of the cap called the perforatorium, the spike that lets the young mushroom punch up through packed soil. Meaty, sweet and intensely savoury, it is gathered by hand for a few brief weeks each year and eaten fresh, fried, in soups and stews, or dried for the lean season — India's "oon" or termite-hill mushroom, Nigeria's ero, Zambia's chikolobwe, one of the great foraged foods of the tropics.