Stereum hirsutum

Description:

Superior Taxa: Stereaceae / Russulales / Basidiomycetes
Este cuerpo fructífero es de color rojo anaranjado, con zonas concéntricas poco definidas de color blanco y tonos amarillentos. Su superficie superior está cubierta por vellosidades (es hirsuto como dice su nombre). Su superficie inferior es amarillo anaranjado, lisa, seca y brillante. Crece en grupos y forma terrazas. No posee olor ni sabor característicos.
Dimensiones:
Mide de 2 a 8 cm de ancho y hasta 2 cm de alto.
Sustrato: Madera.

Stereum hirsutum is a hardwood-loving crust fungus that develops fairly substantial, medium-sized cap structures that often fuse laterally with one another. It is smaller and more frequently fused than Stereum ostrea; it is larger than, and not as orange as Stereum complicatum. It does not “bleed” a red latex when injured, like several other Stereum species do. Under the microscope, it features “normal” hyphidia that are not adorned with projections or spikes.
However, the name “Stereum hirsutum” is generally applied by mycologists to a group of species (or, perhaps, forms of a species) that tend to blend into one another; as one Stereum expert (Welden, 1971) writes, forms of Stereum hirsutum “are defined by external morphological features, and these are not dependable.” Thus Stereum hirsutum, Stereum complicatum, and Stereum gausapatum, at a minimum, might best be seen as positions along a continuum, and would-be Stereum identifiers should probably be prepared for collections that don't quite settle themselves neatly into one or another position.
Ecology: Saprobic on the dead wood of hardwoods, especially oaks; growing densely gregariously, often from gaps in the bark, fusing together laterally; causing a white rot of the heartwood; often serving as a host to algae; sometimes parasitized by jelly fungi; spring, summer, fall, and winter; widely distributed in North America.
Fruiting Body: Individually .5-3 cm across, but often fused together; fan-shaped, semicircular, or irregular; densely velvety, hairy, or with appressed hairs; with concentric zones of texture and color; colors variable, but generally ranging from yellow to tan, brown, reddish brown, or buff (sometimes developing greenish shades in old age as a result of algae); laterally attached, without a stem.

Habitat:

Se desarrolla sobre madera muerta. Es común encontrarla creciendo sobre ramas caídas adentro del bosque, o sobre tocones en praderas. También crece en maderas usadas para cercos y para construcciones.
Distribución:
Cosmopolita, en Chile se encuentra desde el centro hasta el sur austral del país.