Yellow-red gill polypore or Conifer Mazegill

Description:

---Scientific name: Gloeophyllum sepiarium (Fr.) Karst ---Derivation of name: Gloeophyllum means "with glutinous or sticky leaves"; sepiarium means "dark, sepia-colored." ---Synonymy: Lenzites saepiaria (Wulf. ex Fries) Fries; Daedalea sepiaria Fr. ---Common names: Yellow-red gill polypore. ---Phylum: Basidiomycota ---Order: Polyporales ---Family: Gloeophyllaceae ---Occurrence on wood substrate: Saprobic; solitary or grouped or in rosette-like clusters most often on dead conifer wood; June through November, overwinters. ---Dimensions: Caps 2.5-10 cm wide. ---Upper surface: Bright yellowish-red to reddish-brown or brown with a white to yellow to orange growing margin; hairy to almost smooth; zonate. ---Pore surface: Golden-brown; mostly gill-like with few pores; gills 1.5-2 per mm. ---Edibility: Inedible. ---Comments: G. trabeum is a similar species but its pore surface is more a mixture of gills, pores, and maze-like areas. Its gills are more crowded (2-4 per mm), its pores are smaller (up to 4 per mm along the margin), it usually grows on deciduous wood, and it never has the bright colored growing margin that G. sepiarium has ( http://www.messiah.edu/Oakes/fungi_on_wo... )

Habitat:

location: North America, Europe edibility: Inedible fungus colour: Red or redish or pink, Brown, Orange normal size: 5-15cm cap type: Other stem type: Lateral, rudimentary or absent spore colour: White, cream or yellowish habitat: Grows on wood Gloeophyllum sepiarium (Wulf. ex Fr.) Karst. syn. Lenzites sepiaria (Wulf. ex Fr.) Fr. Zaunblattling Conifer Mazegill. Bracket 2–3cm across, 5–12cm wide, 0.5–1cm thick, fan-shaped and often in tiered groups, corky; upper surface coarsely concentrically ridged and radially wrinkled, softly hairy at first later bristly, indistinctly zoned maroon to rusty darkening with age towards the point of attachment, lighter, even bright rusty-orange near the margin. Flesh rusty-brown. Taste and smell slight and not distinctive. Gills densely and radially arranged and often fusing together irregularly giving a maze-like appearance, light ochraceous-rust drying tobacco-brown. Spores white, cylindric, 9–12.5 x 3–4.5um. Habitat on coniferous trees or timber causing an intensive brown rot which rapidly destroys the infected wood. Season all year, annual. Uncommon. Not edible. Distribution, America and Europe ( http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/D... )

Notes:

Medicinal properties Anti-tumor effects The culture mycelia and fruit bodies of G. sepiarium showed 80% and 60% inhibition against Sarcoma 180 cancer, respectively, while the fruit bodies showed 60% inhibition against Ehrlich solid cancer (Ohtsuka et al., 1973). ( http://healing-mushrooms.net/archives/gl... )