Fungus Fact Friday

Tagged: crust

mushrooms with a crust morphology

8

Fungus Fact

#225: Radulodon copelandii, The Asian Beauty

Have you seen Radulodon copelandii?  If you live in the Boston, New York, Pittsburg, or Washington DC areas, you probably have.  If you live elsewhere on the East Coast of North America, get ready to.  R. copelandii is a distinctive fungus that produces a mat of whitish teeth along the surface of recently dead broadleaf trees, usually oaks.  The mushroom recently arrived on the continent from Asia, which gives the mushroom its common name, “Asian Beauty.”  The Japanese names for the mushroom are “Sagari haritaki” and “hanging needle mushroom.”  R. copelandii is currently spreading in eastern North America and is quickly becoming one of the most common mushrooms within its range.  This is concerning, so the species warrants further study and monitoring – hopefully by people like you!

Aleurodiscus oakesii 0

Fungus Fact

#020: Aleurodiscus oakesii, Smooth Patch Disease

Aleurodiscus oakesii is an unusual mushroom that grows on living trees but isn’t considered a parasite. The fungus decomposes the outer layer of hardwood tree bark. This doesn’t harm the bark but does cause smooth patches (thus the name “Smooth Patch Disease”). The mushrooms themselves appear occasionally inside these smooth patches. Each mushroom is a small tan roughly circular crust fungus, so some other common names for the fungus include: “Oak Parchment,” “Hop Hornbeam Disc,” and “Oake’s Crust.” These nondescript mushrooms are easier to identify by their ecology than morphology.  Additionally, you can always see the smooth patches, but the mushrooms are more elusive.  Despite regularly finding smooth patches, it took me four years to find the actual mushrooms.

Sirex noctilio female 0

Fungus Fact / That's Not A Fungus!

#169: Sirex Woodwasp

Sirex noctilio, known as the “Sirex woodwasp” or “European woodwasp” (sometimes spelled “wood wasp”), is an invasive species that attacks most species of pine trees. Interestingly, the insect is dependent upon the fungus Amylostereum aerolatum to complete its life cycle. The Sirex woodwasp carries the fungus with it to new trees and in return the fungus becomes a meal for the Sirex woodwasp’s larvae.

#145: Byssomerulius incarnatus, the Coral-Pink Merulius 1

Fungus Fact

#145: Byssomerulius incarnatus, the Coral-Pink Merulius

This bright, attractive fungus is a great example of how confusing mushrooms can be. Byssomerulius incarnatus is distinguished by its bright pink cap and rough undersurface.  Although its spore-producing surface is not smooth, it is still considered a crust fungus.  To add to the confusion, it is still being shuffled around through a few different genera and it has some kind of relationship with Stereum ostrea (FFF#144) that has yet to be researched.

#144: Stereum ostrea, the False Turkey Tail 8

Fungus Fact

#144: Stereum ostrea, the False Turkey Tail

This mushroom is a common sight on hardwood logs at any time of the year. Its fan shape and circular zones of orange and brown colors make Stereum ostrea look very similar to the true Turkey Tail, Trametes versicolor.  ostrea, the “False Turkey Tail,” has a smooth undersurface, which easily distinguishes it from T. versicolor.

#126: Xylobolus frustulatus, the Ceramic Fungus 1

Fungus Fact

#126: Xylobolus frustulatus, the Ceramic Fungus

Xylobolus frustulatus is one of my favorite fungi. It’s not particularly interesting, but there is just something surreal about the way it covers the surfaces of logs.  From a distance, the fungus looks like a thin layer of weathered paper or parchment covering the surface of a log.  Upon closer inspection, however, the fruiting bodies look more like a mosaic composed of tiny, white, ceramic tiles.  Thanks to its unique appearance, frustulatus is often called either “the Ceramic Fungus” or “the Ceramic Parchment.”

#039: Mushroom Morphology: Crust Fungi 1

Fungus Fact

#039: Mushroom Morphology: Crust Fungi

This is a broad group of fungi that includes all basidiomycete mushrooms with an exposed spore surface that is smooth or mostly smooth. This group excludes all mushrooms that may be placed into the other morphological groups that I have described previously as well as all lichenized fungi.  For example, many chanterelles and corals have a mostly smooth hymenium but are not included in the crust fungi.  There are also a number of ascomycetes that fit this description, although they are usually not included at all in field guides.  These ascos tend to have small dots or pimples where the spores are released, whereas crust fungi do not have such a distinction.  Crust-like ascos also tend to be harder than their basidiomycete counterparts, making microscopic examination somewhat difficult.

#020: Aleurodiscus oakesii, Smooth Patch Disease of Oak [Archived] 0

Archived

#020: Aleurodiscus oakesii, Smooth Patch Disease of Oak [Archived]

Note: This is an archived post.  You can read the current version of the post here. How to use a trees to identify a mushroom (without seeing the actual mushrooms): If you are more than a casual observer of trees you have probably learned that oak trees often have smooth patches in their normally rough bark.  What you may not know is that these smooth patches are caused by the fungus Aleurodiscus oakesii.  This fungus only feeds off of the tree’s bark, so it does not cause any damage to the tree.  However, it does result in patches of bark that are more smooth than usual.  These patches are known as “smooth patch disease.”  As the fungus is not harmful to the tree, the main impact of the disease is the undesirable cosmetic effect it has on trees in peoples’  The disease is common on oaks, especially on white oaks,...