Hello members New to the group and need some help with identification of a specimen. I have attached a pic of it. It is from Mid-Michigan and grew up from an old rotten box elder tree in my yard. it measures approx 14" dia. I since have dried out this piece and gave it a nice coat of clear urethane to protect it. I plan on giving it to a nature lover as a gift and would like to know what it is called? Any help on ident. would be appreciated. Thank You Bill
Most probably one of the 'Chicken of the Woods', perhaps Laetiporus cincinnatus. See this google image search, and specifically this Tom Volk's fungi of the month page for photo comparisons and descriptions. Also you might look at this thread. Harry
Thank you Harry for the info, I have sent this pic to Tom Volk and he thinks it may be a form of Ganoderma. He gave me the link below to see a picture of it http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/mar2005.html. It does resemble my specimen. Thanks for stearing me to Tom's fantastic site! Bill
Thanks for the followup. I should say in all my fungus ids that they are at best coming from an amateur in the field. :) But it helps to find out the real answer. I found the growth form very interesting where the stem becomes inverted and so the top and bottom are reversed as in the normal polypores that or the ones that I'm familiar with in any case (at least in the one pictured on Tom Volk's page). Tom Volk has a lot of interesting pages on his site on identification and growth forms, by the way. He certainly is the expert, or just maybe the most recognized on the internet. Harry