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Red Banded Polypore
Fomitopsis pinicola
41.7908, -124.087
Field Notes
Description:
Cap hoof-shaped or triangular, hard and tough texture, up to 30-40 x 25 x 10 cm. Surface is more or less smooth, at first orange-yellow with a white margin, later dark reddish to brown and then frequently with orange margin. Pore surface pale yellow to leather-brown, 3-4 pores per mm. Grows on live and dead coniferous or (less common) deciduous trees.
The fruiting body of Fomitopsis pinicola is called the conk. It is a woody, pileate fruiting body with pores lined with basidia on its underside. As in other polypores, the fruiting body is perennial with a new layer of pores produced each year on the bottom of the old pores.
This mushroom is inedible due to its woody texture, but it is useful as tinder.
Habitat:
Redwood forest. Big leaf maple trunk. The species is common throughout the temperate Northern hemisphere.
Notes:
An alternative binomial name is Fomes pinicola.
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