Identification of the Larger Fungi

by Roy Watling

Gills: white flushing dirty yellow with age, rather distant and deeply decurrent.

Flesh: white, soft and with very pleasant smell.

Spore-print: pale lilac.

Spores: long, hyaline, oblong under the microscope and 10-11 × 4 µm in size.

Marginal and facial cystidia: absent.

Habitat & Distribution: Common, clustered in tiers on stumps, trunks, posts, etc.

General Information: This fungus is not infrequent on old telephone-poles and forms white sheets of mycelium immediately under the bark of fallen trees. Although frequent in autumn it may be found throughout the year and is easily recognised by its size and bracket-like, shell-shaped caps. It surprisingly has a pale lilac spore-print and not as might be expected a white spore-print. In the var. columbinus Quélet the young caps are a beautiful peacock-blue; this variety frequently grows on poplars.

Illustrations: F 125²; Hvass 109; LH 107; NB 125²; WD 31¹.

Plate 17. Wood-inhabiting, fleshy but leathery fungi: Spores whitish or brownish and borne on gills—‘Pleurotaceae’