Agarikon is a rare, old-growth species of bracket fungus that grows high in the canopy of old Douglas-fir trees in BC (Taylor 2013). Read Terry Taylor's blog post on this species.

Summary:
Features include chalky white hoof-shaped to columnar fruitbodies on conifers, chalky white flesh, crumbly consistency, and extremely bitter taste. This is a source of agaricin (agaric acid) or 2-hydroxynonadecane-1,2,3-tricarboxylic acid, which has been used in the past to inhibit sweating, for instance the night sweats of the tuberculosis sufferer. The quinine-like bitter taste also caused people to falsely attribute anti-malarial properties to it. With Phaeolus schweinitzii and Porodaedalea pini it is said to be one of the three major destroyers of standing coniferous timber in the West of North America. The name Lariciformes officinalis was supported by molecular evidence in the study of Han(1) but was not the current name in the online Species Fungorum, accessed November 23, 2019 or MycoBank, accessed the same day.

Odor:
farinaceous (Arora)

Taste:
extremely bitter (Gilbertson)

Microscopic:
spores 4-5.5 x 3-4 microns, broadly elliptic, smooth, (Arora), spores 6-9 x 3-4 microns, cylindric-elliptic to short-cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 20-25 x 6-8 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; cystidia none; hyphal system dimitic: context generative hyphae 2.5-7 microns wide, thin-walled, colorless, rarely branched, with clamp connections, lactiferous or gloeoplerous hyphae also abundant, up to 13 microns wide, thin-walled, "some with simple septa, often sinuous or branching, staining strongly in cotton blue", "sclerids also present in context, these contorted and irregularly shaped, often lobed, thick-walled, hyaline, walls up to 9 microns thick", trama generative and skeletal hyphae similar to those in context [context skeletal hyphae not described, but illustrated as thick-walled, nonseptate, and in one case branching], (Gilbertson)

Spore Deposit:
whitish (Arora)

Notes:
Fomitopsis officinalis has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, ON, AK, AZ, CA, CO, MI, MT, NM, NV, SD, and WI, (Gilbertson).

EDIBILITY

mildly poisonous (Ginns(28))

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Fomes laricis Jacq. ex Murrill
Laricifomes officinalis (Vill.) Kotl. & Pouzar
Phellodon delicatus (Schwein.) Banker
Phellodon ellisianus Banker
Polyporus officinalis Vill.: Fr.