Phellinus populicola

Description

Phellinus populicola is an inedible polypore fungus living on aspens and thrives in old spruce forests. It has a large and wedge-shaped perennial fruit body. Its upper surface is zone-like and gray or brownish. When older, the surface cracks and becomes covered with moss. The lower surface pore layer is brownish.

This mushroom is a wood decayer that uses wood's brown lignin, leaving white cellulose behind. The species is rare.

Ochroporus populicola is a synonym.

Mushroom Identification

1. Fruitbody

   Upper surface blackish, eventually developing a network of cracks; softer outer margin remaining whitish even on very old fruitbodies; usually 5 to 15cm across, concentrically ridged in annual layers; projecting 5 to 10cm from the substrate. The flesh inside these brackets is very hard. Occasionally, very old specimens 25-30cm in diameter and 15 to 20cm thick are encountered in Scandinavian countries.

2. Tubes and Pores

   The tubes are brown, and spaced at 4 to 6 per mm; they terminate in round or slightly ellipsoidal gray-brown to cinnamon-brown pores typically 0.12mm in diameter.

3. Basidia

   Clavate, four-spored.

4. Spores

   Subspherical, smooth, 5-6 x 4-5μm; hyaline; inamyloid.

5. Spore Print

   White.

6. Odor and Taste

   Not significant.

7. Habitat

   Parasitic on large poplars and Aspen, usually continuing as a saprobe for several years after the tree has died.

8. Season

   Summer to Autumn.

Look-Alikes

1. Phellinus tremulae

   Also growing on aspen, forms smaller, appressed-hoof-shaped fruiting bodies with a beveled cap.

2. Phellinus igniarius

   Is extremely similar in appearance and grows on the wood of many hardwoods, but not on aspen.

History

This tough bracket fungus was first described scientifically in 1975 by the Finnish mycologist Tuomo Niemelä, who gave it the binomial scientific name Phellinus populicola.

In 1886 the genus Phellinus was circumscribed by French mycologist Lucien Quélet; the generic name comes from phell- meaning cork, while the suffix -inus denotes a superlative. The implication, therefore, is that fungi in the genus Phellinus are the most cork-like (the toughest) of them all. The specific epithet populicola indicates that this wood-rotting fungus consumes the wood of poplar trees.

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: caspar s (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Photo 2 - Author: Hans Lindqvist (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: caspar s (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Photo 4 - Author: Ahto Täpsi (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 5 - Author: Ahto Täpsi (CC BY-SA 4.0)