Artist's Bracket

Ganoderma lipsiense

On birches, more rarely on other deciduous stumps and windfalls. Spring, summer, autumn (winter).

Fruiting bodies perennial, large, 10-40 cm across, in the form of semicircular, flat caps, solitary, often several fused together, surface uneven, wrinkled, knobbly, concentrically zoned; the crust hard, cracking audibly as it gives way when pressed, greyish-brownish, brown, greyish-chocolate; in old fungi as if floured (powdered) with fallen cocoa-coloured spores. Hymenophore surface at first white, later yellowish, pale brown, turning brown when pressed. Flesh woody, corky. Grows in forests and parks on fallen deciduous trees, snags and stumps, rarely on conifers. Causes a white or yellowish rot of the wood. Very common, a major forest sanitiser.