I found this two inch fungus in the middle of a steep gravel trail above the valley floor, a curious leathery lump. It was attached to an exposed root and when I peeled it off it exposed an interesting wavy underside. I sent it to Mark Bower who said "you have a very interesting mushroom. It is Coltricia montagnei, which is an uncommon polypore. Way to go. I’ll include it in our Bull Creek list."
He included this link from Dianna Smith with much better photographs like the one below. C. montagnei is a very interesting mushroom from a mycologists point of view. Mushroom Expert Michael Kuo says "This thing is pretty amazing. It's a polypore, but it develops gills. Not only that, but the gills are concentric, rather than radiating out from the stem in lines!"
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| C. montagnei - Dianne Smith - Fungikingdom.net |
C. montagnei is a polypore that like most others is saprobic and is commonly found on dead or dying wood. Its mycelia form a network of threads that gradually break down wood and return nutrients to the soil. Without these services of fungi you can imagine the piles of dead logs that would remain present for years in a forest, preventing any new growth.
Polypores form large fruiting bodies with pores or tubes on the underside, and frequently are on the side of trees forming a shelf, thus the common name bracket fungus. They vary in appearance and some are quite beautiful.
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| Violet-Tooth Polypore, Tricaptum biforme - Mark Bower |
Stopping in the woods to check out a brown lump paid off. In the words of a well known philosopher, "Life is like a box of chocolates..................................."