Turkeytail

  

Loitering in Graffham this morning, waiting for folk to gather for a Graffham Down Trust work party, I noticed this sociable mass of bracket fungus.

The persistent sleet made it difficult to get a decent photograph. So we just have this, for the record - making it seem rather whiter than the image in my memory.

It's a good match for Turkeytail Trametes versicolor in Roger Phillips' Mushrooms:

• usually forming large, overlapping, tiered groups
• 0.1 - 0.3 cm thick (i.e. not very thick)
• underside white, yellowish or light brown with 3 - 5 pores per mm
• colour very variable and concentrically zoned with a white to cream margin
• velvety upper surface

It does have a lovely velvety feel to it. (And I can't see any hairs which would make it Trametes hirsuta).

The book says Turkeytail Trametes versicolor is also very common and found on deciduous wood, all year, which is promising.

BUT there's a note which adds, "this is a very variable species, and some authors recognise several forms." Reckon that could mean we're in dodgy territory, trying to pin this one down to species just from the visual characteristics you can observe in the field.


For the record
Date: 17/01/2016
Location: Graffham
Grid reference: SU926168