On the so-called tiger’s milk “susu rimau” of the Malays
This short note by H. N. Ridley describes the Malay “Susu Rimau” (tiger’s milk), a fungal body traditionally believed to be congealed tiger milk, and compares it with related sclerotial fungi from other parts of the world.
Summary
Ridley examines specimens of Susu Rimau obtained from Pekan, Bukit Mandai (Singapore), and the interior of Pahang, describing them as irregular white lobed masses with a terra-cotta red rind, cheese-like in fresh condition and chalky when dry (p. 341). Microscopically, the body consists of a compact mass of fungus threads (mycelium) mixed with innumerable globose cells, with the mycelium being very scanty relative to the white cells (p. 342). He concludes it is a fungus of the nature of a sclerotium, not an animal structure, and that the climbing plant said to grow from it is unrelated.
Ridley compares Susu Rimau with Rumphius’ “Tuber Regium” from the Herbarium Amboinense, the Chinese drug Fuhling (Pachyma cocos), and a Samoan sclerotium described by G. Murray (1886). He finds it most closely allied to Pachyma but distinct from it specifically, and suggests it may be Rumphius’ long-lost Tuber Regium (p. 343). A Polyporus found growing on the Bukit Mandai specimen proved to be an accidental association, its mycelium structurally different from that of the Susu Rimau, leaving the identity of the producing fungus still unresolved (p. 344).