Thin walled maze polypore

Appearance

The shelflike or bracketlike fruit body is fan-shaped to semicircular, and typically measures 5–15 cm in diameter, and up to 2 cm thick. Its upper surface is broadly convex to flat, dry, smooth to somewhat hairy, and usually has concentric zone lines. Its color ranges from reddish brown to brown to grayish, sometimes becoming blackish in maturity. The cap surface may have an umbo at the point of attachment to the substrate. Fruit bodies are leathery to corky when moist, but become hard and rigid when dry. The flesh is white to pinkish to brownish and tough. The underside of the fruit bodies features tiny pores measuring about 0.5–1.5 mm in diameter. They are white to tan to brown, but will develop pinkish or reddish tones if bruised. Pore shape is highly variable, ranging from circular to elongated, to mazelike, to gill-like. The tubes are up to 1.5 cm long. The fruit body lacks a stalk, as the shelf attaches directly to the substrate. The inedible fruit bodies have no distinctive odor and a slightly bitter taste.

The spore print is white; spores are cylindrical, smooth, and measure 7–11 by 2–3 μm. The basidia have a shape ranging from cylindrical to club-shaped, and dimensions of 20–40 by 3–5 μm. The hymenium features numerous hyphidia, which measure 2–3 μm. The hyphal system of "Daedaleopsis confragrosa" is trimitic, meaning that there are three types of hyphae in the fruit body: skeletal hyphae, which provide structural support, are thick walled, measuring 3–7 μm in diameter; generative hyphae, responsible for new growth, can be either thin- or thick-walled, may contain clamps, and measure 2–6 μm; binding hyphae, thick-walled and much branched, are 2–5 μm.

The polypore is used in ornamental paper making, whereby the fruit bodies are pulped, pressed, and dried to produce sheets with unusual textures and colors.

Naming

"Cerrena unicolor" is a common polypore species with a mazelike pore surface that can resemble "D. confragosa". It can be distinguished by its thinner fruit bodies, a black line in the flesh, and the way that the tubes often break into irregular flattened teeth in maturity. "Daedalea quercina", common on oak, has a larger fruit body up to 20 cm in diameter and 1–8 cm thick, and its pore surface is more distinctively labyrinthine. It causes a brown heart rot, where carbohydrates are removed from the inner heartwood, leaving brownish, oxidized lignin.

Distribution

"Daedaleopsis confragosa" is a lignicolous fungus that produces a decay of sapwood. It causes white rot, a type of wood decay in which lignin is degraded and cellulose remains as a light-colored residue. The fruit bodies grow singly or in groups, sometimes in tiers, in the wounds of living trees. Its preferred host is willow, but it has also been found on birch and other hardwoods. Fruiting usually occurs from June to December, but the hard shelves can persist year-round. In North America, the species is most common in eastern locales, but rare in western regions. It is common in Europe, and is one of the 100 most common fungi in the United Kingdom. Its European range extends east to the Urals. In Asia it is widely distributed, having been recorded from China, western Maharashtra, Iran, and Japan.

The fruit bodies are popular among fungus-loving beetles. In a Russian study, 54 species from 16 families in the Coleoptera complex were recorded using the fungus; the most common were "Cis comptus", "Sillcacis affinis", "Tritoma subbasalis", "Dacne bipustulata", "Mycetophagus multipunctatus", "M. piceus", and "Thymalus oblongus".