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

Phlebia centrifuga P. Karst.
no common name
Meruliaceae

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

Introduction to the Macrofungi

© Jim Riley  Email the photographer   (Photo ID #65773)

E-Flora BC Static Map
Distribution of Phlebia centrifuga
Click here to view our interactive map and legend
Details about map content are available here
Click on the map dots to view record details.

Species Information

Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on wood, 2) a whitish to grayish fruitbody with a radially wrinkled to papillose surface that is "very juicy" when fresh, 3) a whitish margin that is fibrillose-hairy, 4) spores that are elliptic-subcylindric, smooth, and inamyloid, 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections.

Phlebia centrifuga has been found in BC, NB, ON, AZ, CA, CO, MI, MT, and NY, (Ginns). It has also been found in Austria, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, (Eriksson).
Fruiting body:
resupinate, adnate [firmly attached], orbicular [round], confluent, and finally widely effused [spread out], rarely "reflexed-pileate" [bent outward to form a cap] with whitish upperside; at first ceraceous [waxy] and whitish, then gelatinous and watery gray, when old darkening to violaceous gray, often with patches of rose or brownish color; "densely and irregularly papillose and partly radially or unevenly wrinkled", "very juicy"; when dried "darkening to brownish with an irregular yellowish or ochraceous pattern, smooth, brittle and sometimes loosening from the margins"; margin whitish, fibrillose-strigose, (Eriksson)
Microscopic:
SPORES 6.5-9 x 2.5-3 microns, narrowly elliptic - subcylindric, "adaxial side straight or only slightly concave", smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic, thin-walled; BASIDIA 4-spored, 25-35 x 5-6 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA none; HYPHAE monomitic: all hyphae with clamp connections, colorless except parts of hyphae in old fruitbodies, especially next to wood, which may be brown, in subhymenium 2-3 microns wide, thin-walled, richly branched and "forming a dense conglutinate tissue", subiculum hyphae 3-5 microns, parallel to substrate, often forming two discernible layers with the one close to the substrate having non-encrusted hyphae and the one close to the subhymenium having encrusted hyphae, "lumps of crystal matter often occur in the tissue of old fruitbodies", (Eriksson)

Habitat / Range

in spruce forests on the underside of fallen trunks and sides of stumps, (Eriksson), decaying sticks; rotting log; Abies (fir), Acer (maple), Arbutus (madrone), Betula (birch), Picea (spruce), Pinus (pine), Pseudotsuga (Douglas-fir), Thuja plicata (Western Red-cedar), Tsuga (hemlock); associated with a white rot, (Ginns)

Synonyms and Alternate Names

Phlebia mellea Overh.
Phlebia subalbida W.B. Cooke
Polyporus galactinus Berk.

Taxonomic and Nomenclatural Links

Additional Range and Status Information Links

Additional Photo Sources

Related Databases

Species References

Eriksson(6), Ginns(5)

References for the fungi

General References