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Species Information
Summary: "recognized readily in the field because of the watery and sappy fruitbodies, often occurring in abundance, the whitish to pale ochraceous color and the coarsely hirsute pileus and slightly irregular pores. Microscopically, the cystidia are diagnostic." (Gilbertson(1)).
Climacocystis borealis has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, NB, NS, ON, PE, AK, AZ, CO, CT, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, PA, TN, UT, VA, VT, WI, and WY, and it is circumglobal and boreal, (Gilbertson). It occurs in Europe, Asia, Australia, (Breitenbach).
Cap: up to 15cm long, 8cm wide, and 4cm thick toward the base, fan-shaped to broadly stemless, flat and semicircular, often imbricate [shingled], upper surface flat to slightly convex, consistency "soft and watery when fresh, light and brittle when dry"; "white to light cream or straw-colored when fresh, deep straw-colored when dry"; "tomentose to hirsute when fresh, but the hairs agglutinate in drying and surface then often partly glabrous, partly tufted with short stiff hairs, pileus when dry often with radial striae", (Gilbertson), 0.5-20cm along wood, projecting outward 3-12cm, 1.5-3cm thick, bracket-like, spathulate, or fan-shaped, attached broadly or by a stem-like prolongation; white when young then straw-yellow; "coarsely fibrillose-scaly-hispid, radially channeled-grooved, uneven"; margin inflated when young then +/- sharp, wavy, usually yellower than cap surface, (Breitenbach)
Flesh: up to 2cm thick, duplex with a lower dense layer; white to cream, (Gilbertson), "fibrous, tough, succulent, with duplex structure"; white to cream, (Breitenbach)
Pores: about 1-2 per mm, thin-walled and angular, in parts more irregular and split, pore surface usually somewhat oblique; white to cream or light straw-colored; tube layer up to 0.5cm thick, colored as pore surface, (Gilbertson), 1-3 per mm, rounded to angular, somewhat labyrinthine [maze-like] when old; white at first, layer yellowish; tube layer 0.2-0.6cm thick, (Breitenbach)
Stem: none, but may be attached by a stem-like prolongation of cap, (Breitenbach)
Odor: pleasant (Breitenbach)
Taste: bitter (Breitenbach), mild (Phillips)
Microscopic: spores 4.5-6.5 x 3-4.5 microns, broadly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 15-25 x 4-5 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; cystidia embedded in the hymenium or slightly projecting, up to 50 microns long from the clamp connections from which they arise, 5-12 microns wide, "mostly numerous, ventricose and tapering, either acute or slightly rounded, mostly smooth, but also with a few grainy crystals on the top, thin-walled in the lower part, distinctly thickened towards the top"; hyphal system monomitic: generative hyphae up to 4 microns wide in hymenium, (in context mostly wider, up to 8 microns wide), with clamp connections, thin-walled to thick-walled, moderately branched, (Gilbertson), spores 5-6 x 3.5-4 microns, oval, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, sometimes with granular contents, (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
annual, known almost exclusively from conifers, causes "a white mottled rot in the butt and roots of living conifers, continues decay in dead trees and stumps", developing late in season, (Gilbertson), August to November (Phillips), gregarious, sometimes adjacent fruitbodies growing together, rarely single, on dead wood of conifers, rarely on hardwood, (Breitenbach)
