Polyporus tuberaster Jacq.: Fr.
Canadian tuckahoe
Polyporaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Canadian tuckahoe
Polyporaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Species Information
Summary:
Polyporus tuberaster has a yellowish brown cap with darker scales, white to pale tan decurrent pores, and a central to lateral stem with a black base. It arises from a large, rubbery to rock hard, blackish sclerotium that incorporates debris and dirt. The sclerotium is sold in European markets, and if well watered will produce fruiting bodies for eating (Lincoff). According to Paul Kroeger (pers. comm.) the sclerotium has been mistaken for old pemmican.
Odor:
anise (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), resembling cheese (Lincoff), fungoid (Breitenbach)
Taste:
resembling cheese (Lincoff), mild (Breitenbach)
Microscopic:
spores 10-16 x 4-7 microns, cylindric to oblong elliptic, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 25-40 x 6-10 microns, clavate, with basal clamp; cystidia absent; hyphae dimitic, generative hyphae 3-9 microns wide, with clamp connections; hairs at base of stem and the scales mostly of wide generative hyphae; "binding hyphae of the Bovista type with tapering sidebranches, thick-walled to solid, sparingly branched, up to 12 microns in the main stem"; "sclerotium mainly with binding hyphae, in parts very finely branched and very thin, in most parts sparingly branched, thick-walled and variable in diameter, 3-10 microns wide, in some cases with apical swellings", (Gilbertson), spores 10-16 x 3.5-6 microns, cylindric, smooth, (Arora)
Spore Deposit:
white (Arora)
Notes:
Gilbertson(1) show records on a map from CA and AZ, but give distribution as "Western United States south to Arizona in the aspen zone and Southern Canada, widespread in the northern boreal zone", in Canada this fungus occurs in the aspen parkland belt of the prairies, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen who illustrates it from AB, and mentions its occurrence in Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland), known from BC, AB, SK, WA, OR, CA, and AZ, in western North America, (Ginns). It also occurs in Eurasia (Breitenbach).
EDIBILITY
edible, "but tough unless young, fresh and thoroughly cooked", sclerotium inedible because full of dirt, (Arora)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Polyporus squamosus has similar cap scales but 1) it has no sclerotium, 2) it normally has thicker more robust fruitbody, and 3) scales "are normally rounded and more agglutinated and not raised and tufted as in P. tuberaster", (Gilbertson). Polyporus umbellatus fruitbodies sometimes develop from a "branched, elongated, finger-shaped, black" sclerotium 1-2cm in diameter, (Ginns(28)). Polyporus radicatus and Polyporus melanopus develop root-like underground structure.Habitat
annual, on hardwoods or on the ground from a large blackish sclerotium (even on wood, there is often a connection through wood to underground sclerotium), causing a white rot of hardwoods, (Gilbertson), spring, late summer, fall, (Bacon)
Status Information
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Ramaria fennica Marr & D.E. Stuntz
Ramaria versatilis Quel var. violaceibrunnea (Marr & D.E.