Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) growth on wood, often in buildings, 2) a brown to yellow brown, fleshy, waxy, merulioid fruitbody, typically 0.2cm thick, the margin white to pallid, with a few narrow hyphal strands, 3) spores that are broadly elliptic, smooth, nondextrinoid, yellow, and (sometimes slowly) cyanophilic, 4) context hyphae mostly with clamp connections, and 5) hyphal strands with one or more wide core hyphae surrounded by narrower hyphae.
Collections were examined from BC, Washington, NS, Alaska, CO, ME, PA, TN, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and it has also been recorded from the USSR, (Ginns(15)). The North American distribution is BC, NS, CO, IN, ME, PA and TN, (Ginns(5), who does not list the Washington and Alaska collections noted above).
Fruiting body: up to 30cm x 40cm, but normally 10cm in extent and typically 0.2cm but up to 0.65cm thick, effused, merulioid, ceraceous [waxy], fleshy; "hymenial texture when dry hard, brittle, powdery granulose (owing to a thick spore deposit) on the external surface, waxy shiny where broken, brown to yellow-brown with ridges darker than depressions, sometimes drying black"; surface "smooth next to margin, folded, raduloid or rarely with ridges anastomosing to form pits, ridges usually radiating, interrupted, branched", 0.1(0.15)cm high, 3-dimensional configuration also described as follows: "with ridges that are comparatively high and raduloid (i.e., the ridges often are short, not horizontally elongated, with several short branches that appear to be swept up into the center of the ridge to form a fluted, blunt spine)"; margin 0.2(2)cm wide, thick, matted, distinct from brown spore-bearing surface, white to pallid; "context pallid, white or pale yellow, when thick, soft and spongy to felty, homogeneous", 0.1cm thick or thicker, with a few very narrow, pallid hyphal strands; spore print brown, (Ginns(15): it is not clear which parts of the description may be describing fresh state, but in the key, this species has "hymenial surface brown to yellow-brown or drying blackish")
Microscopic: SPORES (5)5.6-6.8(8) x 3.6-4.4(5) microns, broadly elliptic, occasionally broadly oval, especially in face view, adaxially flattened, smooth, nondextrinoid, yellow, cyanophilic (but very slow reaction in some specimens, generally taking 10 to 20 hours), wall thickened to 0.6 microns, apiculus 0.6 microns broad, 0.4 microns long and blunt; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-52 x 6-8 microns, clavate, sterigmata up to 4.8 microns long; cystidia lacking but some CYSTIDIOLES in one collection, 3-4 microns wide, "scarcely projecting with apex papillate, forked or elongated"; TRAMAL HYPHAE 2-3(5) microns wide, woven, frequently branched and septate; CONTEXT hyphae 2-7(18) microns wide, distinct, loosely woven, colorless, thin-walled, "occasionally to frequently branched, with clamp connections and a few simple septa"; HYPHAL STRANDS uncommon, usually next to substrate, 12-25 microns wide, "composed of one or a few core hyphae which are surrounded by narrower (2-7 microns) hyphae", core hyphae 8-18 microns wide, colorless, apparently simple-septate, walls thickened to 1.5 microns, (Ginns(15))
Habitat / Range
associated "with a brown rot of boards and timbers in buildings, cellars, mines, and logs and in live trees and stumps" of Picea (spruce), Pinus (pine), Thuja plicata (Western Red-cedar), other conifers, and once on Quercus (oak), (Ginns(15))
Similar Species
L. pulverulenta generally has a thicker context, a darker spore-bearing surface, and darker spores than other species of Leucogyrophana, (Ginns(15)). Leucogyrophana mollusca has, in contrast to L. pulverulenta, 1) a thin context, 2) a spore-bearing surface that is, when fresh, moist and shiny, 3) a different configuration (3-dimensional contours) of the spore-bearing surface, 4) hyphal strands that are rather obvious microscopically, and 5) slightly broader spores that are pale yellow and dextrinoid, (Ginns(15)). Leucogyrophana romellii has 1) a more thin and fragile nature than L. pulverulenta, 2) a different configuration (3-dimensional contours) of the spore-bearing surface, and 3) spores measuring 4.4-6.0 x 3.2-4.4 microns "with the wall dextrinoid perhaps only weakly so and a buff spore print", (Ginns(15)). Hydnomerulius pinastri, like L. pulverulenta (and L. mollusca) occurs on wood in buildings, but H. pinastri has 1) thinner context up to 0.1cm, 2) an odontioid, yellow to olive-yellow-brown spore-bearing surface, 3) usually black hyphal strands between the substrate and the context, 4) sometimes black sclerotia, 5) paler, slightly shorter (about 5-6 microns) spores, and 6) broad, parallel hyphae in the trama, (Ginns(15)).
