Part 48

General Information: The fungus causes a discolouration of worked timber and induces longitudinal cracking with only a few lateral hair-like cracks unlike timber attacked by the dry-rot fungus (see p. 154).

Illustrations: WD 103⁵.

~Fibuloporia vaillantii~ (Fries) Bondarsev & Singer

Description:

Fruit-body: a resupinate layer of pores with cream-coloured or white sterile radiating margin.

Spore-bearing tissue: distributed within a series of small often shallow, white or ivory tubes.

Spore-print: white.

Spores: smooth, hyaline under the microscope, oblong 5-7 × 3-4 µm.

Cystidia: absent.

Habitat & Distribution: The dry-rot of houses, particularly in roof-systems.

General Information: Fibuloporia vaillantii is recognised by the white, resupinate pore-surface and fairly tough nature due to the presence of strengthening hyphae. Just as the genus Polyporus was found to be composed of several quite different elements (see pp. 140-44) and has since been split up into a number of different genera, the genus Poria has also been fragmented; one of the constituent genera is Fibuloporia. Amyloporia xantha (Fries) Bondarsev & Singer differs in having amyloid tissue and cystidia encrusted with crystals. The flesh contains both simple hyphae and thickened structural hyphae. It is yet another member of the large old unwieldy genus Poria and causes decay of worked wood, particularly the timbers of benching and staging in greenhouses. A. xantha has a sulphur-yellow pore-surface and is rather cheesy when handled.

(c) Colonisers of cones

~Auriscalpium vulgare~ S. F. Gray

Ear-pick fungus

Cap: 8-12 mm. Stem: width 4-6 mm; length 40-75 mm.

Description:

Cap: kidney-shaped or semicircular, thin, date- or umber-brown, hairy, but paler towards the margin.

Stem: erect, slender, hairy, particularly at the base, and attached at the side of the cap (excentric).

Gills: replaced by flesh-coloured, then greyish brown spines.

Flesh: brown.

Spore-print: white.

Spores: small, hyaline, minutely spiny, spherical, 4-5 µm in diameter, and becoming blue-grey in solutions containing iodine.

Cystidia: flask-shaped with oily contents.

Habitat & Distribution: This fungus is always found on fallen pine-cones and occurs from early summer to autumn.

General Information: The ear-pick fungus is easily recognised by the slender, elegant habit, excentrically placed cap, substrate preference and dark colours. It cannot be confused with any other fungus. Recently it has been shown that the ‘agaric’ Lentinellus cochleatus (Fries) Karsten (p. 76) is more closely related to Auriscalpium than this fungus is to other spine-bearing forms and Lentinellus is to the other agarics. Both fungi possess thick-walled cells in the flesh and oil-containing hyphae; they are placed in the family Auriscalpiaceae.

Another laterally stemmed Hedgehog fungus differs in possessing distinctly gelatinised teeth and preference for conifer wood and not cones. Examination of the basidia of this fungus shows that it is more closely related to the jelly-fungi, Exidia and Tremella (p. 184) than to Hedgehog fungi such as Auriscalpium or Hyndum repandum Fries (p. 160). This false nature is reflected in the name of the genus to which it belongs, Pseudohydnum, and the very gelatinous texture in the specific name ‘gelatinosum’: the fungus is Pseudohydnum gelatinosum, or as it used to be called Tremellodon gelatinosum.

Illustrations: Auriscalpium vulgare--WD 103⁶. Pseudohydnum gelatinosum--WD 105⁹.

(d) Terrestrial forms