E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Peniophora incarnata (Pers.: Fr.) P. Karst.
rasy crust
Peniophoraceae

Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.

Introduction to the Macrofungi

© Adolf Ceska  Email the photographer   (Photo ID #18730)

E-Flora BC Static Map
Distribution of Peniophora incarnata
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Species Information

Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on hardwood, 2) an orange-red to brown-orange fruitbody (when young and wet violaceous red and in the herbarium ochraceous) that is smooth to tubercular, 3) margin that is distinctly bounded and when young may be whitish to yellowish and slightly fringed, 4) spores that are cylindric to elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, and in a spore print faintly pink, 5) cystidia of 2 types: thin-walled sulfocystidia and thick-walled encrusted metuloids, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections.

Peniophora incarnata has been found in BC, WA, OR, AB, MB, NF, NS, ON, AK, AL, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, IA, IL, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, ND, NH, NM, NY, OH, PA, SC, VT, WI, and WV, (Ginns). It has also been found in Europe including Switzerland, and Asia, (Breitenbach), and Scandinavia (Eriksson).
Fruiting body:
forming patches a few centimeters to several decimeters across, resupinate, attached tightly, swollen up to 0.1cm thick when moist, waxy-cartilaginous, when dry crustose and thin; orange-red to brown-orange; surface smooth to irregularly tuberculate; margin more or less distinctly bounded, slightly fringed when young, (Breitenbach), resupinate, closely adnate [firmly attached], on bark orbicular [circular] and confluent, on bare wood effused [spread out], "size small to moderate but may reach considerable dimensions, covering undersides of branches", 0.01-0.03cm thick, sometimes more, ceraceous [waxy] in the youngest specimens, then firmer, membranaceous; "pale to bright orange, when young and wet watery violaceous red, in the herbarium fading to ochraceous"; smooth or when old more or less tuberculate, "finally cracking into polygons"; "margin in young specimens sometimes whitish or yellowish, finely fibrillose under the lens, older fruitbodies without differentiated margin", (Eriksson), spore deposit pale pink (Buczacki)
Microscopic:
SPORES 7.5-9.5 x 3.5-4.5 microns, cylindric to elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, spore deposit faintly pink; BASIDIA 4-spored, 40-50 x 5-6 microns, cylindric-clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA of two types: 1) gloeocystidia 100 microns and longer, 8-12 microns wide, sulfo-positive, "thin-walled, arising ascuslike out of the base", 2) lamprocystidia thick-walled, with fusiform, encrusted upper part 40-60 x 8-13 microns; HYPHAE monomitic, hyphae 3-4 microns wide and branched, thin-walled to thick-walled, septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), SPORES 8-12 x 3.5-5 microns, broadly cylindric - narrowly elliptic, smooth, thin-walled, light red in spore print; BASIDIA 4-spored, 35-45 x 5-7 microns, "narrowly clavate, often somewhat sinuously constricted, thin-walled", "smaller in old fruitbodies than in young ones", with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA of 2 types: 1) numerous thin-walled sulfocystidia with granular contents, "growing to long tubes with the thickening of the fruitbody, reaching a length of 200 microns or more and a width of 10-15 microns", 2) fewer encrusted metuloids, at first thin-walled and naked, "then covered with an outer layer of encrustation, the interior filled with a crystalline substance, leaving only a narrow central lumen", total size of encrusted part 30-60 x 7-15 microns; HYPHAE monomitic, 3-4 microns wide, thin-walled, with clamp connections, "densely united, richly branched in the thickening hymenium, basally often a thin subiculum of straight, parallel hyphae", (Eriksson)

Habitat / Range

on dead wood of hardwoods and more rarely conifers, with and without bark, on fallen and standing trunks, on fallen and attached branches, (Breitenbach), on all sorts of wood, most frequently on hardwoods: "fallen or still attached branches, lying trunks and stumps, rarer on coniferous wood, where it is usually seen on upper surfaces of stumps" and on sawn ends of piled wood, left for a couple of years or more in the forest, (Eriksson), dead branches on live trees; wood and bark of fallen limbs; on a garden stake; associated with a white rot; on Abies grandis (Grand Fir), Acer (maple), Alnus (alder), Arbutus (madrone), Arctostaphylos, Baccharis, Bambusa (bamboo), Cercocarpus (mountain mahogany), Chrysanthemum, Corylus (hazel), Crataegus (hawthorn), Cytisus (broom), Fagus (beech), Fraxinus (ash), Holodiscus (oceanspray), Juglans (walnut), Magnolia, Pinus contorta (Lodgepole Pine), Platanus (sycamore), Populus, Prunus, Quercus (oak), Rhus, Rosa (rose), Rubus, Salix (willow), Sambucus (elderberry), Symphoricarpos, Tilia (basswood), Vaccinium, (Ginns), often on ivy and gorse; all year (Buczacki)

Taxonomic and Nomenclatural Links

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Related Databases

Species References

Breitenbach(2)*, Eriksson(5), Ginns(5), Buczacki(1)*

References for the fungi

General References