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Piptoporus betulinus
The fruiting bodies are pale, with a smooth greyish-brown top surface, with the underside a creamy white and with hundreds of pores that contain the spores. The fruiting body has a rubbery texture, becoming corky with age. Wood decayed by the fungus, and cultures of its mycelium, often smell distinctly of green apples.
Piptoporus betulinus is almost exclusively restricted to dead or dying birch trees. The brackets are annual but may persist through one winter. The Razor strop fungus is parasitic on living trees, but it can also live as a saprobe once the tree has died and so is able to fruit in subsequent years until the trunk rots away.
Spotted razor strops or what is left of them on a dead birch in Wechelerveld in rural areas of Deventer, Holland. (sources:see reference)
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