Plicatura nivea

Description

Plicatura nivea and Plicaturopsis crispa, which are both wood-decaying saprobes, are similar enough both genetically and morphologically that many now think they should share the genus Plicatura.

This mushroom grows from September to November, in deciduous and mixed forests, on dry and felled, sometimes on trunks or dry and fallen branches of deciduous trees, mostly alder, sometimes spruce. Causes white rot on wood.

Plicatura is a fungal genus in the order Agaricales. The genus, circumscribed by Charles Horton Peck in 1872, contains the single species Plicatura nivea (synonymous with Plicatura alni Peck 1872).

Mushroom Identification

1. Fruiting Bodies

   Annual, outstretched or outstretched-bent.

2. Cap

   1 - 3 cm long, 1 - 5 cm wide, 0.5 - 3 mm thick, single or grouped in tiled groups, or rows fused sideways. The surface of the bent caps is bare or slightly velvety, sometimes slightly zonal, white, light yellowish, cream, ocher, with age sometimes brownish or brownish. The edge is sterile, thin, white, and sometimes wavy.

3. Hymenophore

   Wrinkled folded. The surface of the hymenophore is first white, later pale cream, yellowish, pale reddish, pale grayish-reddish.

4. Spore Print

   White.

5. Spores

   4-6.5 * 0.8-2 μm, cylindrical, slightly curved, with a smooth surface, amyloid, colorless.

6. Flesh

   The flesh is thin, at first dense, watery, white or cream, later hard, brittle, yellowish or brownish, without a pronounced odor.

Synonyms

1. Merulius serpens Sommerf., 1826

2. Merulius niveus Fr., 1828

3. Sesia nivea (Fr.) Kuntze, 1891

4. Merulius petropolitanus Fr., 1836

5. Plicatura alni Peck, 1872

6. Merulius rimosus Berk. ex Cooke, 1891

7. Radulum cuneatum Lloyd, 1917

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Urmas Ojango (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic)

Photo 2 - Author: Urmas Ojango (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic)

Photo 3 - Author: Urmas Ojango (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic)