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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a tough, thin, circular, reddish brown to blackish brown cap that becomes depressed, 2) small whitish pores, 3) a central to lateral stem that is brownish black, and velvety in upper part, 4) growth on the ground from buried wood, and 5) microscopic characters including generative hyphae with clamp connections. The online Species Fungorum, accessed September 3, 2018, gave the current name as Picipes melanopus (Pers.) Zmitr. & Kovalenko International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms (Redding) 18(1): 36. (2016), but MycoBank, accessed the same day, gave that name as a synonym of Polyporus melanopus (Pers.) Fr.
Polyporus melanopus has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NS, ON, PQ, YT, AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, IA, KY, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY, (Gilbertson), and Europe, Asia, and Australia, (Breitenbach).
Cap: up to 10cm across and 5cm thick, circular; reddish brown to smoky blackish brown, not zoned; "smooth, finely scurfy"; margin often wavy or turned up, (Gilbertson), 3-10cm, convex then funnel-shaped or flattish with wavy margin; bay brown or purplish brown with pale yellowish lines; "smooth and velvety, then very wrinkled, especially in the middle", (Phillips), 2-10cm, circular, convex to flat and slightly funnel-shaped; "light leather-brown to gray-brown"; smooth, very finely velvety, "dull to somewhat innately squamose-radially fibrillose", margin sharp, thin, wavy, (Breitenbach)
Flesh: up to 0.5cm thick, firm, rather friable when dry, not zoned; white, (Gilbertson), about 0.1cm thick, white to cream, (Phillips), 0.1-0.2cm thick, corky, tough; white, (Breitenbach)
Pores: 6-8 per mm, circular to angular, thick-walled; whitish; tube layer up to 0.05cm, slightly darker than flesh, distinct from it and separated by a faint brownish layer, (Gilbertson), 4-7 per mm, circular, decurrent in specimens with lateral stem; whitish to cream then pale straw-colored; tube layer up to 0.3cm thick, cream to straw-colored, (Phillips), 3-4 per mm, irregularly rounded, sometimes decurrent onto one side of stem; white, cream to brownish; tube layer 0.1-0.2cm thick, (Breitenbach)
Stem: up to 11cm x 2cm, central, underground part root-like; blackish in upper part, dark brownish black in lower part; velvety in upper part, bald in lower part, (Gilbertson), 1-5cm x 0.2-0.8cm, "central or lateral; dark brown then black; velvety becoming longitudinally wrinkled", (Phillips), 1.5-5.5cm x 0.3-1.5cm, cylindric, apex set off from pore layer; brown-black; "smooth to longitudinally wrinkled, velutinous", (Breitenbach)
Odor: pleasant (Breitenbach)
Taste: mild (Breitenbach)
Microscopic: spores 7-9 x 3-3.5 microns, cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 18-28 x 6-8 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; cystidia none, cystidioles present, 16-21 x 4-5 microns, fusoid, with basal clamp; hyphae dimitic, generative hyphae of context 3-5 microns wide, colorless in KOH, thin-walled, with clamp connections, rarely branched, binding hyphae of context 2-7 microns wide, colorless, thick-walled, nonseptate, with occasionally branching; hyphae of trama similar, (Gilbertson), spores 6-8 x 3-4 microns, cylindric to oblong elliptic, inamyloid, (Phillips), spores 7-8 x 3-3.5 microns, (Breitenbach)
Spore Deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
annual, on ground, presumably developing from buried wood of hardwoods and conifers, (Gilbertson), on ground or on buried wood (Phillips), single to gregarious, on buried dead wood of hardwoods and conifers, apparently only on soil, according to literature also on roots of hardwoods, (Breitenbach), late summer to fall (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Polyporus badius is found on wood and has a bald stem, and the generative hyphae lack clamp connections, (Gilbertson). P. badius has similar colors but it has smaller pores (5-8 per mm), it fruits "on fallen branches and logs on the ground", and the stem is typically bald, (Ginns). Polyporus varius is found on wood, has a streaked cap, and has a bald stem, (Gilbertson). Polyporus elegans is usually much smaller and becomes whitish when old, besides being black only in the lower part of the stem, (Gilbertson). P. elegans (as P. leptocephalus) is typically smaller and occurs "on fallen branches and logs lying atop the ground", (Ginns). See also SIMILAR section of Polyporus radicatus which has an underground, root-like structure.
