Smoky Bracket

Description

The smoky bracket is a thin, leathery bracket fungus growing on wood. The fruiting bodies are 2–10 cm wide, semicircular or spread out, velvety and wrinkled, ochre-brown to grey-brown, with a pale, whitish margin that turns grey-black in older specimens. They grow in groups, one above another like roof tiles. The underside has very fine pores, from whitish to dark grey-brown, which darken when touched. In cross-section a grey-blackish line is visible between the tubes and the pale flesh.

In Poland it is common in broadleaved and mixed forests, on trunks, stumps and dead branches, most often of beech. The fruiting bodies can be found all year round.

It is inedible. It can be told apart from the similar Bjerkandera fumosa by its thinner flesh and grey underside with pores that darken.

Identification features

Cap

Fruiting bodies annual, semicircular, spread out or spread out with reflexed margins, attached to the substrate sideways. Width 2–10 cm, thickness up to about 1 cm. They usually grow in groups and overlapping like roof tiles, forming clusters covering as much as 5 m of surface. Surface slightly velvety or hairy, wrinkled, ranging from ochre-brown to grey-brown. The marginal zone is distinctly paler, whitish, and grey-black in older fruiting bodies.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Poroid (tubes and pores). Tubes 4–6 mm long, clearly contrasting with the pale flesh and separated from it by a grey-blackish line visible in cross-section. Pores small, round, 4–6 per mm. Colour from whitish to dark grey-brown; the tubes darken when pressed.

Stem

No stem; the fruiting body is attached to the substrate sideways.

Flesh

Whitish or cream, thin, leathery and flexible. Smell faint, slightly sour. The flesh should not be tasted.

Spore print and spores

Spore print straw-yellow. Spores non-amyloid, ellipsoid, flattened and narrowed on one side, 4–5.5 × 2–3 µm.

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. A saprotroph that breaks down cellulose and lignin in wood, causing white rot. It sometimes also attacks damaged trees (wound parasite). It grows on rotting trunks and stumps, mainly of broadleaved trees, especially often on beech; on conifers very rarely (including Abies, Larix, Picea). Also recorded on maples, alder, birch, hornbeam, hazel, ash, oak, poplar, willow, elder and many fruit trees.

Distribution. In Poland common in various types of broadleaved and mixed forests. A widespread species, often found on dead wood. It is not legally protected in Poland.

Fruiting. Fruiting bodies are present all year round.

What can it be confused with?

• Bjerkandera fumosa (Polish: szaroporka odymiona) — It has thicker flesh, and a whitish-yellowish rather than grey hymenophore that only slightly turns brown when pressed. Descriptions mention a dark line in the flesh at the base of the tubes; it should be assessed in cross-section.
• Some species of the genera Stereum and Trametes — They resemble the smoky bracket in appearance; however, they lack grey pores that darken when pressed and the grey-blackish line between the tubes and the flesh.

Never rely on a single feature. If you are not sure — do not pick it; show the mushroom to a qualified mushroom expert.

Interesting facts

• Described by Willdenow in 1787 as Boletus adustus; the epithet adustus means "scorched, burnt" in Latin, referring to the darkening, smoky shade of the fruiting bodies.
• It has more than 80 synonyms, one of the longest lists in Polish bracket fungus mycology.
• Its genome was sequenced and published in 2013.
• The species' enzymes break down both cellulose and lignin, which is why it is the subject of research on biological cleanup of the environment from dyes.