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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) growth as a horizontally flattened whitish bracket that is tomentose to bristly and becomes brownish, 2) duplex flesh that is succulent and soft, 3) rounded whitish pores in a thick layer, 4) growth on hardwoods, and 5) 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)).
Spongipellis spumeus has been found in BC, WA, ID, ON, PQ, CO, IA, IN, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NH, NY, OH, PA, SD, TN, VT, WI, and WV, (Gilbertson). It also occurs in Europe and Asia (Breitenbach).
Cap: applanate (horizontally flattened bracket), up to 10cm wide, 20cm broad, and 2-6cm thick at base, broadly attached or dimidiate with contracted base, "fleshy and soft when fresh, hard and brittle when dry"; "whitish to cream when fresh, pale, straw colored to ochraceous when dry"; finely hirsute [with fine hairs] to tomentose, "in old specimens often tufted and with small pits and areas with flattened agglutinated hairs", not zoned; margin round and velvety to almost bald, (Gilbertson), 10-20cm along wood, projecting 10-20cm outwards, up to about 10cm thick where attached, bracket-like to tuberous, prolonged into a root-like base embedded in the wood; white to cream when young, later ocherish to gray-brown or olive-brown; finely tomentose to hispid [bristly]; margin sharp to somewhat blunt and darker, (Breitenbach)
Flesh: lower part up to 5cm thick, upper part 0.3-1cm thick, "looser with a predominantly vertical fiber direction", white to pale cream, (Gilbertson), "duplex with a softer, thinner covering layer and relatively harder, thicker lower layer, consistency succulent, soft", (Breitenbach)
Pores: 1-2(3) per mm, round and entire, "white when fresh, straw colored to ochraceous when dry"; tube layer up to 1.5cm thick, colored as pores, (Gilbertson), (1)2-4(5) per mm, rounded-angular; white to cream; tube layer 5-10cm thick, (Breitenbach)
Odor: weakly anise-like (Breitenbach)
Taste: mild (Breitenbach)
Microscopic: spores 6-8.5 x 4.5-6 microns, round to broadly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thick-walled; basidia 4-spored, 25-30 x 7-9 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; cystidia absent; hyphae monomitic, generative hyphae "with clamp connections, in the trama 2-4.5 microns wide, in the context with slightly thickened walls" (rarely more than about 0.5 microns thick) "and numerous, large conspicuous clamps, colorless and intertwined, 4-9 microns wide", on the cap "3-7 microns wide and with a dense and partly grainy protoplasm", (Gilbertson), spores 6-8 x 4.5-5 microns, oval, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, rather thick-walled, (Breitenbach)
Spore Deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
annual, on living and dead hardwoods, associated with a white rot, (Gilbertson), single on hardwoods (Breitenbach), single, on living and dead hardwoods, especially in parks and gardens, typically on Fagus (beech); summer, fall, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Spongipellis delectans has "lacerate and dentate dissepiments and often somewhat irregular pores, while those of S. spumeus are regular and the pore surface is smooth", (Gilbertson(1) with Latin name italicized).
