Hairy Bracket

Trametes hirsuta

Parks, gardens, forests. All year round.

Fruiting bodies annual, in the form of semicircular caps, solitary, more rarely several fused together in overlapping tiers one above another, attached to the tree bark by the edge, 3–10 cm across, up to 1 cm thick. Surface covered with dense, glossy hairs, zoned, whitish, yellowish, yellowish-brownish. Hymenophore smooth, white, yellowish, grey, pores round. There are no cystidia; the hyphal system is trimitic. Characteristic features: grows only on dead deciduous, very rarely coniferous wood. Grows on birches, hazels, limes, aspens, willows, plums, apple trees, cherries, etc., also occurring on windfalls, snags, branches and stumps of pines and spruces; causes a white rot of the wood. Very common. Also fairly common in gardens on half-dead and dead plums, more rarely apple and pear trees.