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Species Information
Summary: Features include a white bracket on hardwood, with two-layered flesh, large whitish pores, and microscopic characters. The type of Spongipellis (Spongipellis spumeus) appears unrelated to the other two species here in the genus, and the latter have been placed in Cerrenaceae (Justo(6)). The description is derived from Gilbertson(1) except where noted.
Spongipellis delectans has been found in BC, OR, ON, PQ, AK, DE, GA, IA, IN, MD, MI, MO, MS, MT, NE, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA, and WI, (Gilbertson).
Cap: bracket-like or pore surface slightly effused [spread out], cap up to 7cm x 15cm x 4.5cm, dimidiate [roughly semicircular], applanate [flattened] to ungulate [hoof-shaped]; "white, discoloring to pale brownish and often streaked with light reddish-brown after drying", not zoned; tomentose or short hispid [bristly] to bald
Flesh: up to 2cm thick, soft and spongy in upper layer, corky in lower layer, very faintly zoned; white to ochraceous
Pores: 1-2 per mm, circular to angular, sometimes daedaleoid [maze-like], with thin walls that soon become torn; "white when fresh, becoming pale buff to ochraceous"; tube layer up to 1cm thick, colored as flesh and continuous with it
Microscopic: spores 7-9 x 5-7 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 20-30 x 7-9 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; cystidia none; hyphae monomitic, hyphae of context 4-7 microns wide, colorless in KOH, thin-walled to thick-walled, occasionally branched, with clamp connections; hyphae of trama similar
Spore Deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
annual, single or imbricate [shingled], on dead standing or fallen hardwoods, also causing a heartrot in living trees, especially Populus, associated with a white mottled rot of living or dead hardwoods, (Gilbertson), on rotting hardwood, especially on large old fallen Fagus (beech) trunks causing white pocketed rot, fall, winter, spring, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Spongipellis spumeus has regular pores and the pore surface is smooth, whereas S. delectans has "lacerate and dentate dissepiments and often somewhat irregular pores", (Gilbertson).
