Fungi Friday 🍄

Dulwich, London, September 2023

There’s a shortage of rain and mushroomy conditions at the moment in SE England. This means I am scrabbling around for fungi content. But I did spot this nice, freshly sporing Ganoderma bracket fungus recently near where I work.

I’ve been very relaxed about bracket fungus ID and with this species I usually chuck it in as either southern (Ganoderma australe) or artist’s bracket (G. applanatum).

That needs to change.

Southern bracket grows bigger and more layered than artist’s bracket. The latter gets its name from the fact you can play noughts and crosses on its white underside, or sketch landscapes, the options are there.

So – which species is it? I think it’s either a young southern, or it’s artist’s bracket, with more confidence in the latter. You can see the typical spore coverage of a Ganoderma bracket here, like the top of a mocha.

This fungus family is potentially a sign of future structural issues with the tree, and artist’s bracket is classified as parasitic. I’ve seen a very large southern bracket help to hollow out a massive ash tree which then collapsed. Lest we forget fungi are just doing their jobs.

Thanks for reading.