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Species Information
Summary: Features include yellowish brown azonate fruitbodies either bent outward to form caps from flat pore surfaces, or entirely flat with the pore surface exposed, the caps often shingled, yellowish brown flesh, grayish brown pores, and microscopic characters including setae and setal hyphae. It is common in northeastern North America, but rare in western North America (Gilbertson(1)). The description is derived from Gilbertson(1).
Inonotus glomeratus has been found in BC, OR, ID, AB, MB, NB, NS, ON, PQ, CT, DE, IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, MT, NC, NH, NY, OH, PA, VT, WI, and WY, (Gilbertson)
Cap: bent outward to form cap from flat pore surface, or entirely flat with pore surface exposed, often spread out for 1-2 meters on fallen trees, caps often imbricate [shingled], up to 4cm x 10cm x 1.5cm, margins wavy; upper surface yellowish-brown, not zoned, margin colored the same or yellow ocher; upper surface finely tomentose to bald, often covered with bright yellow mass of spores
Flesh: "golden brown to dark yellowish brown, shiny on cut surfaces, fibrous-corky, faintly zonate, often with a hard, blackish upper layer, up to 1cm thick"
Pores: 3-5 per mm, angular, with thin tomentose walls that become torn when old; grayish brown, glancing [showing a change in appearance from dull to lustrous when orientation of surface to incident light is changed]; tube layer up to 0.7cm thick, colored as flesh but separated by a darker layer
Microscopic: spores 5-7 x 4-5.5 microns, broadly elliptic to oval, smooth, inamyloid, pale yellowish; basidia 4-spored, 9-12 x 5-6 microns, elliptic, simple-septate at base; setae abundant in hymenium, 16-28 x 5-9 microns, subulate to ventricose, thick-walled; context hyphae of two types: some 3-7 microns wide, pale yellowish brown in KOH, thin-walled to thick-walled, rarely branched, simple-septate, setal hyphae 7-12 microns wide, "dark reddish-brown in KOH, thick-walled, tapering to a point, unbranching", trama hyphae similar, "setal hyphae more numerous and conspicuous in trama, parallel to the long axis of the tubes or diverging toward the hymenium, projecting at dissepiment edges and often obliquely into the tubes, 250 to over 500 microns long, 10-15 microns in diam, clearly visible on broken tube surfaces under 30 x lens"
Spore Deposit: bright golden yellow
Habitat / Range
annual, mainly on Acer (maple) and Fagus (beech), not uncommon on Populus, and occasionally on other hardwood genera, "Inonotus glomeratus does not fruit on living trees, but often produces sterile conks on beech and maple", "It fruits profusely on stumps and fallen trees in which it continues to decay after death of the host."
Similar Species
Phellinidium ferrugineofuscum has setal hyphae and grows flat on wood, but grows on conifers and has colorless cylindric spores, (Gilbertson). Inonotus cuticularis has a yellowish brown cap surface that has branched setal hyphae, whereas I. glomerulatus lacks setal hyphae on the cap surface and the yellowish brown cap surface is often covered with a yellow spore deposit, (Ginns(28)). Inonotus obliquus grows on birch (whereas I. glomerulatus grows on Populus and rarely other hardwoods) and spores are 9-11 microns long, (Ginns(28)).
