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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Crusts category. Features include 1) resupinate growth on conifers, 2) a fruitbody with pores that are tan to orange ocher to reddish brown to deep purplish or almost black with a contrasting white margin, 3) spores that are cylindric-allantoid, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, 4) awl-shaped or spindle-shaped cystidioles arising at the same level as the basidia, 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae without clamp connections.
Gloeoporus taxicola has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, ON, AL, AZ, CO, CT, ME, MI, MT, NH, NJ, NM, NY, UT, and WY: it is circumglobal in the coniferous zone, including Australia and New Zealand, (Gilbertson). It has also been found in MB, PQ, SK, CA, GA, and MS, (Ginns(5)), and Switzerland (Breitenbach).
Cap: up to 25cm x 15cm and 0.3cm thick, growing flat on wood with pore surface exposed, rarely bent back to form a cap; margin up to 1cm wide, white to pallid, "when narrow granulose and indistinct", "when wide thick and mycelioid", (Ginns(12)), up to 0.4cm thick, growing flat on wood with pore surface exposed, often widely spread out, "tough and waxy when fresh, brittle and hard when dry", separable to slightly adherent, margin wide and white, conspicuous in contrast to colored pore surface, (Gilbertson)
Flesh: up to 0.2cm thick, cottony, soft, homogeneous; white to pallid, (Ginns(12)), up to 0.2cm thick, fibrous; white, (Gilbertson)
Pores: tan to purplish black waxy surface with narrow folds up to 0.1cm deep, usually randomly arranged, anastomosing to form oval or angular pits, 2-5 per mm, (Ginns(12)), 2-4 per mm, angular, reddish to deep purplish or almost black; tubes up to 0.1cm long, with continuous hymenium over the pore walls, (Gilbertson), orange-ocherish when young, later orange-red-brown to dark red-brown, color always bright, often forming concentric zones, tubes up to 0.1cm deep, (Breitenbach)
Microscopic: spores 3-5 x 1-1.5 microns, cylindric, in side view allantoid [curved sausage-shaped], smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 13-20 x 4-5 microns, slenderly clavate; cystidioles arising at a level with the basidia, 10-25 x 4-5 microns, fusoid, thin-walled; hyphae monomitic, hyphae 2-6.5(8) microns wide, "loosely woven next to substrate, becoming vertically arranged and closely packed in the folds, simple-septate, thin- to rather thin-walled or occasionally thick-walled"; "subhymenium and adjacent context heavily incrusted with golden, resin-like or granular material", (Ginns(12)), spores 4.5-6 x 1-1.5(2) microns, allantoid to cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 15-25 x 4-5 microns, clavate, simple-septate at base; cystidia "present as subulate smooth cystidioles of the same size as the basidia, 15-30 x 3-4 microns, simple septate at the base, quite common in the hymenium which is dense and palisade-like"; hyphal system monomitic, generative hyphae in trama and subiculum up to 6 microns wide, slightly thick-walled, often encrusted, with simple septa, branching often at right angles, loosely interwoven in the subiculum, more parallel and compact in the trama, those in hymenium and subhymenium up to 4 microns wide, also simple-septate and branching often at right angles, but more delicately thin-walled, smooth, (Gilbertson), spores with 2 droplets; cystidia 12-20 x 2.5-3 microns, subulate, (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
saprophytic on conifer wood, causing a white rot, collected in Canada from July through October, but one collection in early May, (Ginns(12)), annual, on coniferous wood, most common on Pinus (pine) and Picea (spruce), rarely on Populus, causes a white rot, (Gilbertson), on dead conifer wood with and without bark, commonly on branches, fallen or attached, (Breitenbach)
Similar Species
Vitreoporus dichrous has clamped generative hyphae, lacks cystidioles, and occurs primarily on hardwoods, (Gilbertson). Byssomerulius albostramineus has larger spores, (Ginns(12)). Ceriporia purpurea 1) has a pore surface that is paler with a more red tint, 2) has pores with sterile mouths (whereas Gloeoporus species have a continuous layer of basidia over pore edges according to Gilbertson(1)), and 3) has larger spores measuring 5-8(9) x 2.0-2.5 microns, (Ginns(28)). See also SIMILAR section of Byssomerulius ambigua and Byssomerulius corium.
