Desiccated fruitbodies

[Matthew Corran]

I'm thinking Inonotus dryadeus ?

[David Humphries]

I'm thinking Inonotus dryadeus ?

 

a fair contender bearing in mind host & location.

 

 

 

 

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[daltontrees]

I found a mass of dried out (could have been crushed to a powder) fungi atht ehbase of a Beech last week. I have to be sure it's not Meripilus, anything else won't be quite as serious. However, it was so dried out it was unidentifiable. So I stuck some of it in a glass of water for a couple of days and it swelled up to possibly its original size. And what looks like remains of gills have become clearer to see. I will put pics up if anyone is interested. Has anyone had to resort to rehydration of samples to aid identification?

[Gary Prentice]

Not yet, but I've this to try to I.d, off a sycamore. I'll give it a go rehydrating it.

[David Humphries]

When rehydrating, its 'sometimes' worth leaving the specimen submerged in water and checking to see if any residual spore floats on the surface.

 

This can be extracted onto card and (if you're lucky) the colour of the spore may be discernable, which can help towards & ID.

 

 

 

Jules, I would be interested in seeing your images of the rehydrated specimen

 

Obviously gills would lead to something other than Meripilus.

 

Interesting post

 

 

 

 

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[daltontrees]

OK I will get the pics off the camera. It was precisely to eliminate Meripilus that I rehydrated, the dry version was so messy I literally couldn't tell which way was up.

[David Humphries]

Inonotus dryadeus remains, on holm oak

 

 

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[David Humphries]

Inonotus dryadeus remains, on holm oak

 

a number of holm oaks at the same location with evidence of the association.

 

 

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[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Inonotus dryadeus remains, on holm oak

 

 

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lovely associated body language too, buckles due to the white delignifying rot:001_cool:

[daltontrees]

Jules, I would be interested in seeing your images of the rehydrated specimen

 

Obviously gills would lead to something other than Meripilus.

 

Interesting post

 

.

 

6 months later and I have finally got round to replying. Attachd is before and after pictures of dried out specimen. I had begun to think that those gills were not gills at all but fibres within the fruiting body. Despite close examination of dried and rehydrateds specimen I could not find anything resembling pores.

But revisiting the tree this week kind of answered the question. Last spring there was no evidence of such extensive fruiting having taken place. This year it seems to have gone bonkers.

In conclusion the rehydration was not particularly helpful in this case.