Conifer Heart-rot
(Root Fomes)
Description
Fruit-body perennial, thick, crust-like with free, semicircular, flattened bracket-like cap or caps. Cap 5-15 x 3-10 cm, up to 3 cm thick. Upper surface concentrically grooved-zoned, a fairly smooth, hard crust. light brown or red-brown to dark brown or black, with acute, white to red-brown growth zone.
Tubes each layer 3-6 mm long, cream to pale ochre. Pores 3-5 per mm, circular to angular, whitish to ochre. Flesh woody, whitish to cream. Smell strong, sweetish.
Spore-print colour white.
Occurrence
Common on stumps and trunks and at the base of living coniferous trees, occasionally on deciduous trees.
Parasitic. (Saprophyte).