Part 46

Tinder fungus

Cap: 90-300 mm, hoof-shaped, thick, broadly attached to the substrate, zoned with yellow-brown and shades of grey; its margin is blunt and fawn or pale brownish.

Tubes: layered, cinnamon-brown with pale cinnamon pores with a whitish bloom.

Flesh: cinnamon-brown or buff and woolly.

Spore-print: white.

Spores: elongate, ellipsoid, very long, hyaline under the microscope, 15-18 × 5-6 µm, and not ornamented. The flesh contains both thick- and thin-walled hyphae. It grows on birch and less frequently on beech. The flesh has been used in dentistry, in manufacturing fancy articles, such as mats, and was the basis of the tinder used in flint-boxes.

Illustrations: LH 65; NB 117¹; WD 100¹.

~Phellinus igniarius~ (Fries) Quélet ‘Willow Fomes’, grows on willows and causes their heart-rot. It is a rust-brown, woody fungus with a hard crust and brown tubes and flesh. The spore-print is white and composed of small, spherical, hyaline spores, 5-6 µm in diameter. The flesh contains thin- and thick-walled hyphae.

Illustrations: LH 63; WD 99³.

~Oxyporus populinus~ (Fries) Donk, grows on various sorts of broad-leaved trees, particularly poplars and often becomes covered in mosses and algae. It has a pale buff or cream-coloured cap, white flesh, pores, tubes and spores.

Illustrations: LH 67.

~Cryptoderma pini~ (Fries) Imaz, grows on conifers often several feet above the ground. It has a woody, deeply cracked upper surface, dark red-brown flesh, tubes and pores. Its spores are small, broadly ellipsoid and brown.

~Heterobasidion annosum~ (Fries) Brefeld

Root fomes

Variable, sometimes possessing a cap, sometimes resupinate except for the upturned margin, flattened or shell-shaped, red-brown to blackish at the centre but pale at the margin, which when seen from below is always white. The tubes are in layers and like the pores, flesh and spore-print are white. The spores are broadly ellipsoid, small, smooth, hyaline and 4-5 × 4 µm. The flesh is fairly tough as it contains both generative hyphae and skeletal hyphae. It is frequent on the roots and lower parts of stems of many trees and shrubs causing a rapid heart-rot of conifers and extensive damage to young trees.

Illustrations: LH 67; NB 111¹; WD 98¹.

The spores of all the perennial polypores described above do not blue when placed in solutions containing iodine.

~Schizophyllum commune~ Fries

Split-gill fungus

Cap: 10-25 mm. Stem: width 2-4 mm; length 2-4 mm.

Description:

Cap: greyish fawn becoming whitish when dry, fan or kidney-shaped, often lobed and covered in close-set hairs and with incurved margin.

Stem: absent or the cap simply narrows into a stem-like bump.

Gills: replaced by a series of grey-brown plates which when dry appear as if to split longitudinally and their edges roll back.

Flesh: brownish but drying whitish.

Spore-print: white.

Spores: medium sized, oblong, hyaline under the microscope, not blueing in solutions containing iodine and 6-7 × 2-5 µm in size.

Facial and marginal cystidia: absent.