Summary: Also listed in Crusts category. Features include 1) resupinate growth on conifers, 2) a fruitbody with pores that are tan to orange ocher to reddish brown to deep purplish or almost black with a contrasting white margin, 3) spores that are cylindric-allantoid, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, 4) awl-shaped or spindle-shaped cystidioles arising at the same level as the basidia, 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae without clamp connections.
Microscopic: spores 3-5 x 1-1.5 microns, cylindric, in side view allantoid [curved sausage-shaped], smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 13-20 x 4-5 microns, slenderly clavate; cystidioles arising at a level with the basidia, 10-25 x 4-5 microns, fusoid, thin-walled; hyphae monomitic, hyphae 2-6.5(8) microns wide, "loosely woven next to substrate, becoming vertically arranged and closely packed in the folds, simple-septate, thin- to rather thin-walled or occasionally thick-walled"; "subhymenium and adjacent context heavily incrusted with golden, resin-like or granular material", (Ginns(12)), spores 4.5-6 x 1-1.5(2) microns, allantoid to cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 15-25 x 4-5 microns, clavate, simple-septate at base; cystidia "present as subulate smooth cystidioles of the same size as the basidia, 15-30 x 3-4 microns, simple septate at the base, quite common in the hymenium which is dense and palisade-like"; hyphal system monomitic, generative hyphae in trama and subiculum up to 6 microns wide, slightly thick-walled, often encrusted, with simple septa, branching often at right angles, loosely interwoven in the subiculum, more parallel and compact in the trama, those in hymenium and subhymenium up to 4 microns wide, also simple-septate and branching often at right angles, but more delicately thin-walled, smooth, (Gilbertson), spores with 2 droplets; cystidia 12-20 x 2.5-3 microns, subulate, (Breitenbach)
Notes: Gloeoporus taxicola has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, ON, AL, AZ, CO, CT, ME, MI, MT, NH, NJ, NM, NY, UT, and WY: it is circumglobal in the coniferous zone, including Australia and New Zealand, (Gilbertson). It has also been found in MB, PQ, SK, CA, GA, and MS, (Ginns(5)), and Switzerland (Breitenbach).
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Vitreoporus dichrous has clamped generative hyphae, lacks cystidioles, and occurs primarily on hardwoods, (Gilbertson). Byssomerulius albostramineus has larger spores, (Ginns(12)). Ceriporia purpurea 1) has a pore surface that is paler with a more red tint, 2) has pores with sterile mouths (whereas Gloeoporus species have a continuous layer of basidia over pore edges according to Gilbertson(1)), and 3) has larger spores measuring 5-8(9) x 2.0-2.5 microns, (Ginns(28)). See also SIMILAR section of Byssomerulius ambigua and Byssomerulius corium.
Habitat
saprophytic on conifer wood, causing a white rot, collected in Canada from July through October, but one collection in early May, (Ginns(12)), annual, on coniferous wood, most common on Pinus (pine) and Picea (spruce), rarely on Populus, causes a white rot, (Gilbertson), on dead conifer wood with and without bark, commonly on branches, fallen or attached, (Breitenbach)