I believe this is Trichaptum biforme...
... commonly known as the violet-pored bracket fungus, purple tooth, or violet toothed polypore, is a species of poroid fungus in the order Hymenochaetales. It is a saprobe that decomposes hardwood stumps and logs. It has a violet colored edge that fades with age. It is inedible....
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It's pretty though!!
wow - It's like the fungus knows you are coming... and they are dressing up for the occasion.
Starting a Fire with a Mushroom (Polypore Fungus)
This fungus amongus brings memories
of when they flung teh dungatus
Correct, well done. Or T. abietinum if on a conifer tree, they look pretty much the same, although T. biforme tends to be quite a bit larger.
There is also T. laricinum that grows on larches in particular, but the hymenial surface on the underside has a more gill-like structure, rather than the pores that erode into teeth on the other two. T. fuscoviolaceum has a purple hymenial surface but the cap surface on top is brown.
The natural history museum at Messiah University has a lot of useful pages on mycology, including Trichaptum
You watch, you'll be hooked on this stuff soon. I never imagined it could be such an absorbing hobby.
I was surprised to learn how many people here know a thing or two about mushrooms. Quaestor and amr in particular. We should do a foray in September when things are really rocking up there.
Yes to Trichaptum biforme.
The tree is not a conifer (and larch is a type of conifer).
I didn't know about those other two species of Trichaptum
I'm in MN and probably won't be going on a foray.
Thanks for the invite though!
"Correct, well done."
I used an app: Picture Mushroom.
"You watch, you'll be hooked on this stuff soon. I never imagined it could be such an absorbing hobby."
I don't know if I've been more observant or if it's just all the rain we've had, but now when I do my midday forest walk, I look around next to the trail and seem to be able to find 2 or 3 new things every day.
@Derve Swanson: A saprobe... lol. Is that like a simp? ;-)
Ha ha, not exactly, but there are parallels in the human world.
The difference between a saprobic species and a mycorrhizal species is like the difference between a bum who eats from dumpsters and picks up cans and bottles for the deposit money, and a working man who provides a useful service in exchange for his wages. The one gets its energy from consuming dead or dying wood, while the other is a symbiotic partner of the tree roots among which it lives, trading nutrients and stored water in exchange for the sugars the tree produces by photosynthesis. There are also murderous criminals in fungal society, i.e. the parasitic species like the honey mushrooms of Armillaria, which don't wait for the tree to die before they eat it. They invade healthy trees and kill them.
Fungi have a far more evolved and sophisticated genome than the trees they live with, and are more closely related to us than they are to trees and other plants. They produce enzymes than can extract micronutrients like selenium, magnesium, and phosphate from the soil far more efficiently than the tree roots can, and swap them for the glucose produced in the tree leaves. Other complex fungal gene products are responsible for the fermentation that gives us wine and other nice boozy things, or the delicious flavors of a morel or porcini or truffle, or the serotonin agonists like psilocybin, psilocin, and baeocystin that are responsible for the hallucinations of "magic mushrooms". They also produce powerful toxins like the bicyclic octapeptide alpha-amanitin, the primary poison found in lethal species like the Death Cap, which defied all attempts at synthesis by organic chemists until very recently.
[I gave the saprobic species a bum rap, so to speak, in what I said above. They are the only organisms that can efficiently digest the lignin polymers that give wood its structural strength, except for a handful of bacteria found mostly in aquatic environments. The petrified forests of Arizona and a few other parts of the world were laid down before fungi had evolved the capability of digesting this substance. Without these fungi, dead trees would not rot, but merely accumulate in piles until they were either incinerated in a huge forest fire or buried in sediment to become petrified wood. Since this evolutionary milestone, though, new petrified forests are not being created in anything like the quantity they did before.]
I must apologize for being such a long winded bore about mushrooms. I just love everything about them, and I've been tickled pink that Althouse and Meade have seen fit to photograph so many for the cafe threads this year.
@Althouse: I don't know if I've been more observant or if it's just all the rain we've had, but now when I do my midday forest walk, I look around next to the trail and seem to be able to find 2 or 3 new things every day.
Wisconsin is a paradise for mushroom lovers. The Northwoods Foray put on by the Wisconsin Mycological Society up in Cable every September is something every mycophile should try to attend.
Likely said in prior fungi posts, but has anyone scanned the POTUS for a fungus?
@Althouse: I used an app: Picture Mushroom.
Those apps can be useful to get you started, but they are not considered trustworthy by the mycological community, particularly for specimens you intend to eat. The best is probably the wonderful iNaturalist app, which makes very solid suggestions when you upload pictures of your findings, thanks to its enormous database of peer-reviewed observations. The large mushroom ID groups on Facebook are filled with world renowned experts and I think they are significantly better than the apps. But in the end there is really no substitute for going on an educational foray and holding the specimen in your hand with an experienced mycologist at your elbow to teach you its nuances.
@JAORE:Likely said in prior fungi posts, but has anyone scanned the POTUS for a fungus?
You jest, but there is evidence that Candida albicans infection can lead to deposition of amyloid proteins in the brain, and may cause or at least be a contributing factor to the development of Alzheimer dementia.
It's a butterfly!!
Ann Althouse said...
"You watch, you'll be hooked on this stuff soon. I never imagined it could be such an absorbing hobby."
I don't know if I've been more observant or if it's just all the rain we've had, but now when I do my midday forest walk, I look around next to the trail and seem to be able to find 2 or 3 new things every day.
7/5/24, 10:57 AM
-------
Life is literally pulsing
with all the extra water
being absorbed, or not,
by the green plants... Enjoy.
It's all alive, you get that, right?
"but now when I do my midday forest walk"
How many walks do you take a day?? You are lucky. You have a lot of beautiful places to walk!! I have a boardwalk during non-tourist season, but they now build the sand dunes so high (after Super Storm Sandy) that you can't see the beach anymore unless you are walking on the sand, so unfortunately, I stick to my neighborhood.
Festoon fungas to celebrate independence day?
Every fungus is edible at least once!
Can George "Puppy" Stephanopoulos pull a Mike Wallace tonight, and go in for the kill?
I have my doubts!
If you feel really daring, leave some magic mushrooms in the green room.
That would be a mean trick!
But funny, really funny.
Also known as "blue meanies"
look out if you run into Hillary
Even fungus is decorated in a beautiful purple. The Creator is quite an artist.
mikee,
"Edible" doesn't just mean someone could physically eat it, but that it good and healthy to eat.
Further, there are mushrooms that would be very difficult to eat. Conks like Ganoderma applanatum are too hard and woody. Would be like eating a block of cork. Others like Lentinellus ursinus are nontoxic but immensely unpleasant to merely chew for a few seconds due to their spicy, bitter flavor that lingers in the mouth for almost an hour. I would not consider it edible or even eatable.
(That usage is a pet peeve of mine, sorry.)
President Biden dodged questioning during his ABC News interview over whether he’d take a cognitive test.
“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test – everything I do,” Biden said when Stephanopoulos asked him if he’d be willing to undergo an independent medical evaluation, including neurological and cognitive tests.
“You know, not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world,” he added.
"Those apps can be useful to get you started, but they are not considered trustworthy by the mycological community, particularly for specimens you intend to eat. The best is probably the wonderful iNaturalist app, which makes very solid suggestions when you upload pictures of your findings, thanks to its enormous database of peer-reviewed observations...."
I'll check out iNaturalist. You have to sign up and give them your information. Not sure if I want to do that.
The app I used scanned my photographs.
Actually, I'd just like a website I could use on my browser.
BTW, I don't plan to eat anything.
@Althouse: I'll check out iNaturalist. You have to sign up and give them your information. Not sure if I want to do that.
You ought to be able to use a throwaway email and a pseudonym without too much trouble.
If you don't want the app, you can do it all with a browser.
The Polypores contain interesting fungi. One called The Dyer's Polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii) yields a range of yellow to brown. My ex was a fiber person.
"Are you insane?"
"No, I'm running the world!"
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