Phellodon tomentosus
Description
Phellodon tomentosus can be distinguished by a pale cap that soon becomes light to dark brown in the center with a white margin, white spines, and a sweet odor. It has small fruitbodies with caps zoned in shades of brown, a whitish cap edge, small grayish spines, and brown flesh. No other phellodon in the PNW has this coloration.
Several hydnellums have brownish zoned caps, but they usually are larger and have brown spores. It is habitat solitary to scattered to cespitose in the ground with conifers, especially pines spruce; fall to spring; not uncommon.
This mushroom was first described as Hydnum tomentosum by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, it was transferred to the genus Phellodon by Howard James Banker in 1906. It is found in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Similar species include Phellodon atratus, Coltricia cinnamomea, Sarcodon fuscoindicus, Phellodon confluens (Persoon).
Common names: Zoned Cork Hydnum, Zoned Phellodon, Woolly Tooth.
Mushroom Identification
Cap
The cap measures 2-6 cm, often merged with nearby specimens, connate, flat or depressed at the center, initially velvety and felted, then fibrous-scaly, white-gray-brownish when young, then brown-yellowish, whitish in the marginal parts, concentrically zoned.
Hymenium
Spines of grey color, very thick and short (2mm), decurrent to the stem.
Stem
The stalk is brownish, more or less felty, irregular, can reach 3-4 cm of length and less than 1 cm of thickness.
Flesh
Brownish and exiguous, coriaeous-elastic.
Habitat
Grows in the coniferous and mixed woods, most frequently under the Norway spruce.
Microscopy
Hyaline spores, spherical to amply ellipsoidal, aculeate, 3,1-3,6 X 2,7-3 µm.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: amadej trnkoczy (amadej) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: Jerzy Opioła (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Jerzy Opioła (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 4 - Author: Jerzy Opioła (CC BY-SA 4.0)