11/14/2023 0 Comments Turkey tail mushroom![]() ![]() Microscopic Features: Spores 4.5–5.5 x 1.5–2 µm cylindric smooth hyaline in KOH inamyloid. Pore Surface: Whitish to pale brownish not bruising with 3–6 or more tiny pores per mm tubes up to 1.5 mm deep.įlesh: Insubstantial whitish, except for a very thin black line (in cross-section) separating the cap surface from the flesh tough and leathery.Ĭhemical Reactions: KOH negative to yellowish or yellow on flesh. ![]() The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.Ĭap: 2–8 cm across 1–4 cm deep 1–2 mm thick plano-convex to flat in outline circular, semicircular, fan-shaped, bracket-shaped, or kidney-shaped often fused with other caps flexible when fresh densely hairy or velvety, often with alternating zones of texture with concentric zones of white, gray, brown, cinnamon, orangish, and reddish brown (but highly variable in color and sometimes with other shades, including blue, green, and orange). For further information, see Nicholas Money's "Are mushrooms medicinal?" (2016).Įcology: Saprobic on the deadwood of hardwoods, or rarely on the wood of conifers annual causing a white rot of the sapwood growing in dense, overlapping clusters or rosettes on logs and stumps year-round very widely distributed and common in North America. There is only pseudoscience, bad science reporting in the mainstream news media, and very wishful science reporting in the alternative health media. There is no legitimate scientific support for the idea that mushrooms are medicinal in any specific, eat-them-to-get-better way. The only health benefits associated with consuming Trametes versicolor result from the exercise involved with hunting for it in the woods. Regarding the putative "medicinal" properties of this mushroom: I am sorry to put it this bluntly, but this mushroom is not going to cure your cancer, nor any other ailment you may have-and if someone has sold you a product based on the assumption that it will, you have purchased some snake oil from a witting or unwitting charlatan. Thin and flexible: Totally True Turkey Tail. No: See several other species of Trametes.ĥ) Does the cap lack starkly contrasting color zones (are the zones merely textural, or do they represent subtle shades of the same color)?Ħ) Is the fresh mushroom rigid and hard, or thin and flexible? Would you say there are about 1–3 pores per millimeter (which would make them fairly easy to see), or about 3–8 pores per millimeter (which would make them very tiny)?ġ–3 per mm: See several other species of Trametes.ģ) Is the cap conspicuously fuzzy, velvety, or finely hairy (use a magnifying glass or rub it with your thumb)? No: See Stereum ostrea and other crust fungi.Ģ) Squint real hard. But if you are one of those folks, like me, who just has to be sure, I offer the Totally True Turkey Tail Test, below.ġ) Is the pore surface a real pore surface? Like, can you see actual pores? Often the zones represent contrasts in texture as well as color, so that fuzzy zones alternate with smoother ones.Ī number of similar polypores, and even a few species of crust fungi, look more or less identical to the casual eye, and a whole host of mushrooms are thus lumped together as "turkey tails" by collectors who are more interested in gilled mushrooms and boletes. The mushrooms are strikingly "zonate" with sharply contrasting concentric zones of color, and the surface of the cap is finely fuzzy or velvety. Its cap colors are extremely variable, but tend to stay in the buff, brown, cinnamon, and reddish brown range. Trametes versicolor is one of the most common mushrooms in North American woods, found virtually anywhere there are dead hardwood logs and stumps to decompose-and, occasionally, on conifer wood too. Who started this clucking menagerie of mushroom monikers, anyway? Was Old MacDonald a mycologist? However, the chicken of the woods and the hen of the woods look nothing at all like chickens or hens, while the turkey tail does look (vaguely) like a turkey's tail. Trametes versicolor, often called the "turkey tail," has the dubious distinction of being the only member of the forest fungal fowl community not named for the full bird, but a feathery fraction. Trametes versicolor: The Turkey Tail (MushroomExpert.Com) Major Groups > Polypores > Trametes versicolor ![]()
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