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, especially oak, 2) a fruitbody that is pale yellowish, reddish, red-brown, brownish, light ocher, or greenish, the surface merulioid-poroid (never radially wrinkled), 3) spores that are suballantoid, smooth, and inamyloid, 4) abundant thin-walled cystidia that are clavate or fusiform, imbedded in the trama, and colorless to reddish brown, 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae embedded in a gelatinous matrix, with clamp connections, the hyphae often reddish brown, and 6) lumps of crystals often occurring. Nakasone(10) presents evidence that Phlebia acerina Peck is a different species, based on intersterility, fruitbody differences, slight molecular differences, and differences in distribution. (See also SIMILAR.) P. acerina in the view of Nakasone(10) is common and widely distributed in North America (including BC and OR) and other continents, but Phlebia rufa is known only from BC, WA, and OR, and Europe.
Phlebia rufa in the wider sense is found in BC, WA, OR, AB, MB, ON, PQ, SK, AZ, CA, DC, IL, KY, MA, MD, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, PA, VA, VT, WI, and WV, (Ginns), and Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, southern and central Europe, and southwest Asia (including Iran), (Eriksson).
Fruiting body: resupinate, attached firmly, "rarely somewhat lifted at the margin", at first rounded spots one to several centimeters across which can grow together and form expanses of several decimeters across, flesh gelatinous and soft when moist, corneous [horny] and tough when dry; surface light ocher to red-brown; "undulating wrinkled (merulioid) to irregularly poroid, never radially wrinkled"; "marginal zone white and fringed-fibrous when young, more distinctly bounded when older", (Breitenbach), resupinate, closely adnate [firmly attached], effused [spread out], ceraceous-fleshy, when dried membranaceous-coriaceous to corneous; "varying in color: pale yellowish, reddish, greenish or brownish, darker when dried"; surface reticulately folded to almost poroid; margin +/- indeterminate, sometimes finely fimbriate [fringed], (Eriksson), spore deposit white (Buczacki)
Microscopic: SPORES 4.5-5.5 x 2-2.5 microns, cylindric, slightly allantoid, smooth, inamyloid, with 2 droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 18-25 x 3.5-4.5 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; LEPTOCYSTIDIA abundant, +/- clavate, thin-walled, often with septa and clamp connections, up to 120 x 10 microns, colorless when young, later with brownish contents, imbedded in the trama; HYPHAE monomitic, 2-3 microns wide, with clamp connections, sometimes encrusted with crystals (especially in older fruitbodies), (Breitenbach), SPORES 4.5-6.5 x 2-2.5 microns, suballantoid, smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic, thin-walled, with 1-2 oil droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 25-35 x 3.5-4.5 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA "narrowly clavate or fusiform, appearing in the margin of growing fruitbodies, and in the transitional layer, then mainly horizontal, varying in length" (50-100 microns or more), 10-15 microns in width, "in subhymenium generally fewer and smaller, often clavate", 35-50 x 7-8 microns, young cystidia as a rule colorless, old ones often filled with reddish brown matter; HYPHAE monomitic, with clamp connections, in subhymenium 2-3 microns wide, "vertical, densely united", thin-walled, in subiculum 3-5 microns wide, "with somewhat thickened walls, horizontal", "all hyphae embedded in a gelatinous matrix", often colored reddish brown (especially in the transition zone between subhymenium and subiculum); CRYSTALS often in lumps, occurring abundantly, especially in old fruitbodies, (Eriksson)
Habitat / Range
on dead wood of hardwoods with and without bark, especially common on Quercus (oak), (Breitenbach), on decayed hardwood, mainly Quercus, "e.g. fallen trunks and branches, but also on dead, still attached branches", both on bark and on barkless wood, (Eriksson), Abies (fir), Acer (maple), Alnus (alder), Betula (birch), Castanea (chestnut), Fagus (beech), Fraxinus (ash), Juglans (walnut), Liriodendron, Malus, Nyssa (tupelo), Pinus (pine), Populus, Prunus, Quercus (oak), Salix (willow), Tilia (basswood), Tsuga (hemlock), Ulmus (elm); creosote or penta-treated southern pine poles; associated with a white rot, (Ginns), late summer to spring (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Phlebia radiata has practically the same microstructure, but is radially folded, whereas Phlebia rufa is always merulioid-poroid, (Eriksson). Typical specimens of P. acerina [which we treat here as a synonym] have yellowish brown spore-bearing surfaces that are unchanged in KOH, whereas the spore bearing surfaces of P. rufa are reddish brown and turn even darker in KOH. Fruitbodies of P. rufa are generally thinner and less robust than those of P. acerina. The folds in P. acerina are broader, and the margins are usually entire and often detach whereas those of P. rufa are fibrillose and closely appressed. Mature P. acerina often develops "a differentiated subiculum with conglutinated parallel hyphae next to the substrate and a loose upper layer that contains abundant, yellow, amorphous substances", but this is never present in P. rufa. Hymenial cystidia are usually present in P. acerina and are difficult to separate from agglutinated hymenial elements, whereas hymenial cystidia are rare to absent in P. rufa and hymenial elements are not agglutinated and are therefore easier to separate. The spore-bearing surface may be interrupted in P. acerina by "white, felty to woolly mycelia". (Nakasone(10)). See also SIMILAR section of Phlebia tremellosa.
