You may remember the flamboyant Chicken of the Woods, L.sulphureus and its kin. Well, a little lmore restrained in its physical appearance, but perhaps even more famous around the world, is G.frondosa.
In the west, it is known as the "Hen of the Woods", perhaps a reference to the relative muteness of its plumage compared to the "rooster" that is L.sulphureus. Or, if you believe Tom Volk, the name might come from a fleeting resemblance to a roosting hen... one which I do not see.
You may also know this mushroom by its Japanese name, Maitake - which may or may not mean "Dancing Mushroom", after the joyful dance mushroom hunters break out in when one of these is found.
Who knows where or why naming conventions take hold. For our purposes this is G.frondosa, and it really is a joy to find.
G.frondosa is a fairly straightforward mushroom to identify, with few real lookalikes in North America and a series of easy to recognize macroscopic characteristics.
As we've discussed a few times before, sometimes certain mushrooms have an affinity for a specific species trees, either growing parasitically on them or mycorrhizally in a mutually supportive nutritional arrangement.
In the case of G.frondosa, the affinity with Oak trees can be both an important species identifier, as well as a helpful homing beacon if you go out to hunt G.frondosa.
Nonetheless, they continue to be fairly robust, despite a relative paucity of rain.
As I mentioned last week in the first tree health special, G.frondosa is technically a parasitic mushroom. However it is only "weakly" parasitic, to quote multiple sources.
Being a weak parasite doesn't make you a helpful parasite, and G.frondosa is still, technically, a net harm to its host tree. But, as compared to some aggressive tree killers in the Ganoderma or Laetiporus genuses, G.frondosa can live for many years on an infected tree without causing any deleterious signs or symptoms.
G.frondosa grows out from the roots or dead wood, with a tough stem that soon differentiates into a sometimes very wide and tightly packed collection of caps, layered in a floret shape.
The whole structure can get quite large, nearly half a meter in diameter sometimes, as well as quite heavy. If you take a look at the individual caps, you can see they've taken on a darkish tan color with some darkening around the edges. The young mushroom tends to be on the gray side of things, although as always color is variable.
When the mushroom is younger, the pore surface is often grayer and then whitens with age. It does not bruise when damaged, although you can see the slight yellowing near the bottom.
surface.
G.frondosa has a white spore print and, although a spore print is certainly retrievable from a young specimen, this guy was pretty old and pretty dry. I brought home a couple of the moistest caps I could find and left them covered for a couple of days. Nonetheless, I hardly got any spores from them except for a tiny patch of white near one of the edges.
The mushrooms had a very slight mushroomy odor, but only when I tore a cap in half and squished it a bunch, which again is a result of dehydration.
Unfortunately this mushroom was caught before my KOH arrived - still waiting on the application bottles BTW - but it wouldn't have mattered as KOH is non reactive on G.frondosa.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Black-staining_Polypore_-Flickr-_treegrow.jpg
This mushroom grows in similar ecologies as G.frondosa, with similar cap colors. However, M.sumstinei begins life with white gills rather than grayish, and - as its nickname implies - its pore surface bruises and stains black, unlike G.frondosa which does not change color.
Cap = The floret or rosette shape is made up of many small individual caps, colored from gray to light brownish/tan, getting darker and toward the brown side as it ages. Each individual cap can range from 3-13 centimeters across according to kuo, although even smaller is possible and 13 is pretty big. The whole floret can be pretty big, and weigh quite a lot - up to half a meter, based on anecdotes I've heard.
Spore surface = Small pores, smooth to the touch, starting grayish and aging into white - does not bruise when damaged. May stain yellow with age.
Flesh = white, and the color does not change when cut or damaged. More tender when young, tougher and firm when older or dessicated.
Stem ("stipe") = Present, tough, not always central, white with yellow staining. Causes a white butt rot on the tree.
Spore Print = White
Ecology ("How it grows.") = "Lightly" parasitic, usually on oaks in the northeastern Americas. Also saprobic on dead hardwood, also usually oak. Sometimes on oak roots, in which case it could look terrestrial.
Distribution = Definitely abundant in the eastern US - present in other parts of the world as well, including, obvoously, Japan. But i would do local research depending on where you are to confirm.
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Photos Are My Own Except:
[1]This image was created by user Patrick Harvey pg_harvey at Mushroom Observer, CC-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia commons
[8]Katja Schulz from Washington, D. C., USA, CC-SA-2.0, via Wikimedia commons
Information Sources:
[1]Kuo on G.frondosa
[2]Tom Volk on G.frondosa
[3]Messiah College on G.frondosa
[4]Wikipedia On G.frondosa
[5]Kuo on M.sustinei