Silverleaf Fungus

Stereum purpureum

Forests, parks, gardens, on rotten deciduous wood. Spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Fruiting bodies spreading, with the margins detached from the substrate, or forming caps 0.5-2 cm across fused together in overlapping tiers, their upper side whitish, greyish or yellowish, softly fibrous, hairy, wrinkled. Hymenophore smooth or wrinkled, purplish-violet, of waxy, gelatinous consistency, when old brownish, dry, hard. Characteristic features: cap surface felt-like. Grows on deciduous snags, stumps, windfalls, branches and stored timber, especially firewood, also occurring on conifers. Causes a white rot of the wood. Very common. A saprotroph, a good forest sanitiser. In rare cases it acts as a weak biotroph.