Chondrostereum purpureum (Pers.: Fr.) Pouzar
silver leaf fungus
Cyphellaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
silver leaf fungus
Cyphellaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Species Information
Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate, leathery growth on hardwood, or with projecting overlapping buff caps, the spore-bearing surface colored shades of violet, and smooth to slightly wrinkled, 2) a visible black line in flesh when cap cut in cross-section, 3) spores that are elliptic to cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, 4) cystidia that are sparse, narrow-fusiform, projecting, and incrusted or not, 5) bladder-like hyphal ends in the subhymenium, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections.
Microscopic:
SPORES 6.5-8 x 2.5-3.5 microns, elliptic to cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; BASIDIA 4-spored, 45-60 x 6-7 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA: leptocystidia 60-70 x 4.5-7.5 microns, fusiform, "some resembling stinging hairs, some incrusted", in subhymenium many conspicuous hyphae with bladder-like ends 7-15 microns across; HYPHAE monomitic 2.5-4 microns wide, thin-walled to thick-walled, with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), SPORES 5-8 x 2.5-3 microns, allantoid to subcylindric, smooth, inamyloid; BASIDIA 4-spored, about 50 x 5 microns, placed together in a very dense hymenium; CYSTIDIA sparse, 60-80 x 6-8 microns, projecting 25-50 microns, fusoid or obtuse, thin-walled, smooth or with crystalline deposits; HYPHAE "monomitic with clamped hyphae, thinwalled in the subhymenium, more or less thickwalled in the other parts of the fruitbody", hyphal width from 3 microns, (Eriksson)
Notes:
Chondrostereum purpureum has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NB, NF, NS, ON, PE, PQ, SK, YT, AK, AL, CA, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY, (Ginns), and Europe and Asia (Breitenbach).
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Under some circumstances, old fruitbodies can be confused with Amylostereum (amyloid spores), Veluticeps (long, encrusted cystidia), Stereum, Peniophora (with strongly encrusted subulate cystidia), or Trichaptum abietinum (pores under hand lens), (Breitenbach).Habitat
saprophytic or parasitic on stumps, branches or trunks of hardwoods, rarely conifers; infected trees such as fruit trees develop a characteristic leaf change called "silver leaf" disease, (Eriksson), on a variety of conifers and hardwoods, the fungus produces toxins that produce silver leaf disease and ultimately kill branches or the entire tree, fruit bodies produced on old sticks, dead stems, dead stumps, logs, pulpwood, associated with a white rot, (Ginns), June to April, may persist for several years, on apple, plum, and other hardwoods, causes silver leaf disease of apple and plum trees, (Lincoff(2)), year round, with new growth between spring and fall, (Bacon)