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Species Information
Summary: Features include a brown to grayish black bracket-like or hoof-shaped fruitbody with a velvety brown growing margin, small brown pores, brown to rusty brown flesh, and white-streaked tubes. There is a Phellinus igniarius complex of 15 species worldwide corresponding to a well supported clade in DNA study (Zhou, L.-W.(1)). Six of these occur in North America: Phellinus alni, Phellinus betulinus, Phellinus lundellii, Phellinus nigricans, Phellinus pomaceoides, and Phellinus tremulae. Notably absent are A) Phellinus igniarius itself about which they say "The specimens studied by Gilbertson and Ryvarden (1987) might actually represent other members of the P. igniarius complex.", B) Phellinus laevigatus - they imply that North American collections may fall under Phellinus betulinus, and C) Phellinus pomaceus - they rename the North American collections in the study Phellinus pomaceoides. (Zhou, L.-W.(1)). Tom Volk and Diane Pleninger wrote about Phellinus igniarius (in a wide sense), "In northern North America, the ash of Phellinus igniarius conks was widely used with indigenous plants before tobacco arrived. The Denaina, an Athabascan Indian people of the Alaskan interior, chewed a mixture of P. igniarius ash and balsam poplar bark in pre-contact times. Collections in Canadian and US museums show that P. igniarius was used with tobacco by the Micmac of Nova Scotia, Inuit of Labrador, Blackfoot of the North American Plains and Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest. This specific basidiocarp was selected and preferred above all other sources of ash. The reason for this is its high pH." (Volk).
Phellinus igniarius group has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NT, NB, NF, NS, ON, PE, PQ, SK, YT, AK, AR, CA, CO, CT, IA, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NH, NY, OH, PA, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY, (Gilbertson), and Europe, Asia, and Africa, (Breitenbach).
Cap: 5-20cm or more broad, 2-12(20)cm thick, shelf-like or bracket-like to hoof-shaped, hard and woody; brown, soon becoming grayish and finally black; finely hairy or velvety when young, usually with a crust, at least when older, when old "often cracked, furrowed and/or knobby"; "margin brown and velvety when actively growing", (Arora), up to 11cm x 20cm x 8cm, bracket-like or rarely bending out from a flat pore surface to form a shelf-like cap, hoof-shaped, or sometimes applanate [thin and horizontally flattened]; gray or blackish; bald, grooved, becoming deeply cracked, incrusted; margin bald and either colored as cap or colored yellowish brown, (Gilbertson), rusty brown, later gray, and finally black; concentrically ridged, becoming smooth then cracking, (Phillips), 5-25cm across, projecting 5-20cm out from wood, 3-15cm thick where attached, sometimes green from algae, margin inflated and obtuse, (Breitenbach)
Flesh: hard, woody; rusty-brown to brown, (Arora), up to 2cm thick, woody; zoned, dark reddish brown; core absent or present next to wood, with white tissue intermixed, (Gilbertson)
Pores: 4-5 per mm, grayish brown to brown; tube layers each 0.2-0.5cm thick but not always stratified, tubes of older layers often stuffed with white mycelium that shows as streaks or flecks when cut, (Arora), 5-6 per mm, circular, thick-walled; pale cinnamon brown to dark purplish brown; tubes in distinct layers, each up to 0.4cm thick, the tubes white-stuffed, (Gilbertson), tubes rusty brown (Phillips), tube layers up to 10cm thick total in old specimens (Lincoff), red-brown when growing, gray to brownish gray at other times, (Breitenbach)
Chemical Reactions: cap tissue blackens in KOH (Arora)
Odor: mushroomy (Phillips)
Taste: sour or bitter (Arora)
Microscopic: spores 5-6.5 x 4.5-6 microns, broadly oval to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 9-10 x 6-7 microns, broadly clavate, simple-septate at base; setae abundant to rare, 14-17 x 4-6 microns, ventricose to subulate [awl-shaped], core setae present in some specimens, up to 15 microns wide, irregularly lobed and branched, thick-walled; hyphae of context of 2 types: 1) 2-5 microns wide, "brown in KOH, thick-walled, distinct, with rare branching, aseptate", 2) 2-3 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled with occasional simple septa, very indistinct; hyphae of trama similar, 2-3 microns wide, (Gilbertson), spores 5.0-6.5 x 4.5-6 microns, broadly oval to nearly round, walls thick and colorless; generative hyphae indistinct, skeletal hyphae 2-5 microns wide, walls brown and thick; setae hymenial, 12-25 x 4-9 microns, "ventricose to subulate", (Ginns(28)), spores 5-7 x 4-6 microns, round or nearly round, smooth, (Arora), spores 5-7 x 4-6 microns, nearly round, smooth, colorless, slightly thick-walled, (Breitenbach)
Spore Deposit: whitish (Arora)
Habitat / Range
perennial, single or in small groups on hardwood trunks (usually living), especially common on birch and aspen, occurring year round, (Arora), perennial, on living hardwoods, continuing decay in dead trees; associated with uniform white rot of heartwood of living hardwoods, (Gilbertson), year round, but new pore layer in fall (Bacon)
Similar Species
Fomes fomentarius can be similar to very young and (rarely) older P. igniarius when the cap surface may be smooth and gray, but F. fomentarius has spores 12-20 microns long and lacks setae, (Ginns(28)). Phellinus lundellii has spores 4.5-6 x 4-5 microns, and setae 8-20 x 4-7 microns, and if a cap is present it rarely projects as much as 2cm, (Ginns(28)). See also SIMILAR section of Fomes fomentarius, Phellinus arctostaphyli, Phellinus pomaceus, Phellinus prunicola, and Phellinus tremulae.
