Fomes excavatus

There was a bunch of bracket fungi that ranged in color from orange to brown growing on these birch logs. Several of them had amorphic shapes.

comments (2)

WildFlower

Lion

Fomes excavatus is currently not an accepted species but a synonym of Fomes fomentarius.
http://www.indexfungorum.org/names/NamesRecord.asp?RecordID=197920
http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/64a1971c8346d306c250a3c65a378f22/synonym/48a7497d2b5c86574cc092335c614f86
https://www.gbif.org/species/3363661
http://www.mycobank.org/name/Fomes%20excavatus&Lang=Eng

Recent molecular studies suggest that Fomes fomentarius is a species complex and strains within the species segregate into 3 (or 4) distinct clades but in all these articles only the name Fomes fomentarius is used and there are no references to other species names such as Fomes excavatus or new suggestions.
Fomes excavatus was described from Île-à-la-Crosse which is located in the boreal forest of northwest Saskatchewan, Canada. It has not been compared in that study alond with the other strains from the USA. It could as well be in a clade of it's own, who knows, but for the time being the USA strains of Fomes fomentarius should not be identified as Fomes excavatus.
http://mushroomobserver.org/name/show_name/47210
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4305089/ Posted 7 years ago
1. Christine Young
  
  Lion
  
  Interesting, thanks WildFlower. I went back and forth on whether to call this F. excavatus or F. fomentarius. I was told that the difference between the two is that F. excavatus has a more pronounced sporophore surface, while fomentarius has a flatter sporophore . Also, that excavatus is the North American species that resembles F. fomentarius, which is the Western to Northern European counterpart. Posted 7 years ago