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.