Summary:
Also listed in Polypores category. Echinodontium tinctorium forms hard hoof-shaped conks on hemlock and true fir, with cracked hairy blackish upper surface, grayish blunt spines, and rusty-orange flesh. The common name India paint fungus refers to its use by First Nations people in preparing war paint: in powdered form it was also used by shamans as medicine. It can also be used as a red dye for yarn.

Odor:
none (Miller)

Taste:
none (Miller)

Microscopic:
spores 5.5-8 x 3.5-6 microns elliptic, minutely spiny, amyloid, (Arora), spores 6-8 x 4.5-6 microns, elliptic, smooth to minutely echinulate, weakly to moderately amyloid, colorless, thick-walled; basidia 4-spored, 35-45 x 6.5-8 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; cystidia abundant, 25-65 x 8-17 microns, "becoming thick-walled, ventricose to subulate, dark reddish brown in KOH and Melzer''s reagent, some paler at the tip, fusoid to mammillate, apically incrusted but incrustation dissolving readily in KOH and Melzer''s reagent"; hyphal system dimitic, context generative hyphae 2.5-6 microns wide, thin-walled, colorless in KOH, with clamp connections and simple septa, occasionally branched, context skeletal hyphae 3-6.5 microns wide, thick-walled, bright reddish brown in KOH and Melzer''s reagent, with rare branching, nonseptate, trama generative hyphae 2-5 microns wide, with abundant clamp connections, trama skeletal hyphae similar to those in context, (Gilbertson)

Spore Deposit:
white when obtainable (Arora)

Notes:
It is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, AK, AZ, CA, CO, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY, Mexico, and not elsewhere in the world, (Gilbertson).

EDIBILITY

no (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Dacrymyces punctiformis Neuhoff
Fomes tinctorius Ellis & Everh.