These were seen on a fallen log in Richmond. 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. White cap, gills off white. Kindly ID please.
This is a really cool mushroom David, unique in some interesting ways. I'll leave it to you to google the whole story for Schizophyllum commune, but a few brief things about it; - First off it is lovely! - The double gill pattern (combined with sessile/stipeless on wood, size etc) make it very identifiable. - It has thousands and thousands of mating types! A very successful strategy when you work out the math. Fungal reproduction is interesting and takes longer to explain. Last I heard, of all the fungal species that had been studied for number of mating types, this one has the most. By contrast for example mammals have two mating types (in the literal biological sense of genetic recombination in reproduction), which at least in theory is a less successful strategy. - It has medicinal qualities different from the more common categories of medicinal qualities in fungi. - It can inhabit dry decorticated but fairly intact wood - such as lumber and some driftwood - a specialized wood habitat subclass that is clearly less popular with mushroom producing fungi. frog
Wow! That was a great find. Thank you very much for the introduction to this species. "It has 23,328 distinct sexes", "immunomodulatory, antifungal, antineoplastic and antiviral activities", "can also cause disease in humans"! I will spend the rest of this morning reading about it. Much appreciated.
