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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) thin tough bracket-like fruitbodies that are gray to buff, hairy to bald, and zoned, 2) a purplish pore surface that fades to ochraceous and quickly becomes tooth-like, and 3) growth on hardwoods.
Trichaptum biforme has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NB, NS, ON, PE, PQ, SK, AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, WY, and circumglobally, (Gilbertson).
Cap: up to 6cm wide and 0.3cm thick, bracket-like, dimidiate [roughly semicircular] to fan-shaped or petal-like; gray to buff, hirsute [hairy] to bald when old, zoned; margin sharp, (Gilbertson), 1-8cm across, "semicircular, fan-shaped, flat; color variable in concentric zones, ochre to dark brown, white to grayish, brownish or black, violet margins; hairy becoming smooth", (Phillips)
Flesh: up to 0.15cm thick, tough-fibrous, azonate; pale buff, (Gilbertson), 0.5-1.5cm thick, white to yellow, (Phillips)
Pores: 3-5 per mm, angular, walls becoming thin and torn or splitting to form spines; "purple to violaceous or fading to pale buff"; tube layer up to 0.2cm thick, violaceous or colored as flesh, (Gilbertson), 2-5 per mm, angular becoming tooth-like; "white to brownish with mauve tinge and mauve along the margin"; tube layer 0.1-1cm thick, (Phillips)
Microscopic: spores 6-8 x 2-2.5 microns, cylindric, slightly curved, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 12-22 x 4-5.5 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; cystidia abundant, "20-35 x 3-5 microns and projecting to 20 microns", fusoid, slightly thick-walled, apically incrusted, with basal clamp; "thick-walled, clavate, sterile elements infrequent in hymenial layer"; hyphae dimitic, generative hyphae of context 2.5-6 microns wide, "thin-walled, with clamps, occasionally branched", skeletal hyphae of context 3-6 microns wide, "thick-walled, nonseptate, rarely branched"; hyphae of trama similar, (Gilbertson), spores 5-6.5 x 2-2.5 microns, cylindric, smooth, (Phillips)
Spore Deposit: white (Phillips)
Habitat / Range
annual, single or imbricate [shingled], on dead hardwoods of many genera, rarely on conifers, associated with white pocket rot of sapwood of dead hardwoods, the wood becoming "lacy and fragile with small empty pockets", (Gilbertson), "numerous, single, or overlapping caps on dead stumps" of hardwood trees, reducing them to sawdust, (Phillips), fruiting from late spring to fall (Miller)
Similar Species
Trichaptum abietinum grows on conifers, tends to be thicker and dimidiate rather than petaloid, has a gray hairy upper surface, retains the purplish color of the pore surface longer, and less quickly becomes tooth-like, (Gilbertson). Trichaptum subchartaceum is larger with thick flesh and persistent pores, and grows only on cottonwood and aspen, (Gilbertson). See also SIMILAR section of Trichaptum laricinum.
