The weirdest fungus I've come across... ID please?

[lipase]

I couldn't find anything like this in the collins complete guide or the collins gem guide... It smells fairly strongly of meal with a hint of antiseptic and has a number of animals crawling over it. I found about 10 millipedes, a couple of woodlice and a slug on the fruit body. The fruit body itself was on its own (as in not in a cluster) and found growing from a horse-chestnut tree but with another fruit body on the tree in another spot. I couldn't go round the tree and so only saw one side of the tree, there may have been other fruit bodies.

The tree had huge galls or something, at least about 40cm across, the fruitbodies were growing at the edges of the tumour-like growths on the tree.

The date was 25/04/2010

Has anyone come across anything like this?

Jack

[lipase]

sorry, forgot the photos...

[Ditiola]

Hi
You have a specimen of a fungus that has not developed properly. Due to the abnormal development it is difficult to know what is should be. It looks like it has a scaly cap, It would be handy to know if there was any signs of gill or pore development, when cut in two?

So fleshy fungi on trees with scaly cap, I think the most likely one is Polyporus squamosus.

Peter

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Ditiola

So fleshy fungi on trees with scaly cap, I think the most likely one is Polyporus squamosus.

I agree. And the mealy smell is consistent with that species. Pity it was not left, as they are rather lovely species when fully grown.

[lipase]

Yeah I regretted picking it as soon as I had done the deed, I didn't want to look like too much of a weirdo taking a picture of a random fungus in such a public place so I went there in the dark when I knew no-one would be around which admittedly probably even more weirdo-like... I'll learn for next time just to do it and look like a bit of a freak.

There is at least one other fruit body on the tree so I'll photograph that one when it's fully developed... Without picking it

[lipase]

Thanks for the ID so far guys, will be exciting to see how it develops.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by lipase

Yeah I regretted picking it as soon as I had done the deed, I didn't want to look like too much of a weirdo taking a picture of a random fungus in such a public place so I went there in the dark when I knew no-one would be around which admittedly probably even more weirdo-like... I'll learn for next time just to do it and look like a bit of a freak.

Don't worry, passers by are often interested in fungi anyway.

[FungiJus]

Originally Posted by lipase

Yeah I regretted picking it as soon as I had done the deed, I didn't want to look like too much of a weirdo taking a picture of a random fungus in such a public place so I went there in the dark when I knew no-one would be around which admittedly probably even more weirdo-like... I'll learn for next time just to do it and look like a bit of a freak.

Are you suggesting that people who take photos of random fungi are wierdos . Probably right actually.

Anyway, I remember being confused by this one just after I got into this fungi business - I thought I had found a new species because I couldn't find it in Phillips . How naive .

It actually starts out wierder still before morphing into the form you have there, like these I found around this time last year:

[lipase]

Originally Posted by FungiJus

Are you suggesting that people who take photos of random fungi are wierdos . Probably right actually.

Anyway, I remember being confused by this one just after I got into this fungi business - I thought I had found a new species because I couldn't find it in Phillips . How naive .

It actually starts out wierder still before morphing into the form you have there, like these I found around this time last year:

cool that does start out weirder. A time lapse video would be pretty awesome. Yeah I thought I'd found some rare species or something, I was well impressed!

[lipase]

Originally Posted by Leif

Don't worry, passers by are often interested in fungi anyway.

That might be true of a normal community but my town is far from normal itself so to fit in you can't go round photographing fungi. I worked at the local school for a while, meaning all the kids know me and so word would spread fast! They probably already know I'm a weirdo but there's not much I can do about that!