Part 45

Cap: 25-60 mm. Stem: absent.

Description: Plate 46.

Cap: semi-circular, flattened, thin, tough and flexible when fresh with the surface velvety and marked with smoother, paler concentric zones giving a pattern of yellow-brown, grey or darker greenish grey zones; the margin is thin and is the palest of the zones and may be wavy or lobed.

Tubes: white with small, round and rough-edged to angular white or cream-coloured pores which become yellowish with age.

Flesh: white, tough and continuous with the tube tissue and so not allowing one to detect any difference between the tissues.

Spore-print: white.

Spores: medium sized, oblong and hyaline under the microscope, and 6-8 × 2-3 µm; not blueing in solutions containing iodine.

Habitat & Distribution: Very common on stumps, trunks and fallen branches of various trees, especially beech; it is to be found throughout the year.

General Information: It is often associated with nodulose masses of fungal tissue which are covered in small poroid areas and are very confusing when found by the beginner; they are simply growth-forms of Coriolus versicolor; such forms are frequently found on old house-timbers exposed to the weather, particularly window frames where it forms a distinct rot. Its flesh consists of thin-walled hyphae and binding hyphae as in Polyporus squamosus as well as an additional thick-walled type called skeletal hyphae. It would appear that several polypores are capable of producing the amorphous growths mentioned above, some of which contain hyphal fragments called conidia.

The bands of colour on the cap of the ‘many zoned polypore’ are retained after drying and from a group of fruit-bodies the most attractively zoned can be selected, mounted on small pieces of wood or cardboard and fitted at the back with a pin. Such preparations make very attractive brooches and have been used even by modern designers to contrast with their fashion creations.

There are many pale tubed polypores growing on wood. Daedalea quercina Fries ‘Mazegill’, grows on oak and has irregular maze-like pores; Lenzites betulina (Fries) Fries, grows on birch, has tough plates which resemble the gills of an agaric. Datronia mollis (Fries) Donk forms thick spreading resupinate patches on beech, sometimes with irregular dark brown caps formed by the upturned margin. Several species of Tyromyces occur in Britain and are characterised by their white pores and tubes and the white or pale-coloured caps. Bjerkandera adusta (Fries) Karsten has a grey pore-surface and is also frequently found on beech.

Illustrations: F 44a; LH 69; NB 117³; WD 51².

~Ganoderma europaeum~ Steyaert

Common ganoderma

Cap: 100-350 mm. Stem: absent.

Description: Plate 47.

Cap: bracket-shaped, rather flat at margin but humpy and irregular about the middle, frequently concentrically zoned, smooth and only slightly shiny; its margin is whitish or pale greyish.

Tubes: red-brown or cinnamon-brown, obscurely layered and with small, white pores flushed with pale cinnamon-brown, but deep red-brown when rubbed or with age.

Flesh: with a fragrant smell, deep red brown and felty-fibrous.

Spore-print: dark cinnamon-brown.

Spores: long, oval with truncate apex, smooth, but reticulate on the inner surface of the inner wall giving the spores a patterned appearance when seen under the microscope; 10-11 × 6-7 µm in size.

Habitat & Distribution: This fungus is common on various trees, especially beech and can be found throughout the year.

General Information: This common Ganoderma is perennial and distinguished from other polypore groups by the complex spores. G. applanatum (Fries) Karsten is closely related, but differs in the thinner fruit-body with a thin margin, and the pale cinnamon-brown flesh; the flesh of both species contains thick-walled binding and strengthening hyphae as well as the generative hyphae.

So sensitive are the pores to bruising that if a drawing or writing is executed on the lower surface with a pin, needle or similar sharp instrument and the fungus dried, the red-brown lines produced are retained and the pattern preserved. Several fungus paintings prepared in this way were made in the early part of the century, many beautiful ones having originated in the eastern part of North America.

Fomes fomentarius whose important characters are described below has frequently been confused with Ganoderma europaeum. It is common growing on birch in Scotland, but is less frequent south of Perth, and then grows probably more frequently on beech which is similar to the pattern found on the continent of Europe. However, it has grown in former periods in England on birch, for it was found commonly amongst birch timbers in an excavation of an early Mesolithic lake side village near Scarborough, Yorkshire.

Illustrations: NB 125³; WD 160².

Some perennial polypores. Plate 48.

~Fomes fomentarius~ (Fries) Kickx