Tiered Tooth

Description

Tiered tooth forms a large, bracket-like fruiting body up to 30 cm across, made up of several to a dozen or so wavy, shell-shaped lobes arranged in tiers or overlapping like roof tiles. From the underside of each lobe hang dense, whitish spines 0.5–1.5 cm long, resembling icicles. Young fruiting bodies are creamy white, turning yellow and brown with age. The upper surface is rough, warty or covered with undeveloped spines.

It grows on dead wood of broadleaved trees, most often beech, in old broadleaved and mixed forests, from June to November. In Poland it is rare and appears on the Red List in category V (vulnerable). It may appear at a given site for only a few years.

It is distinguished from Hericium coralloides by not being branched like a bush but consisting of bracket-like lobes, and from hedgehog mushrooms (Hydnum) by growing on wood and having a rough, not smooth, upper surface. The catalogue lists the species as inedible, and given its rarity it is better left in the forest.

Identification features

Cap

Fruiting body up to 30 cm across, made up of many shell-shaped, fan-shaped, irregular and wavy lobes (each 3–8 cm wide, according to some descriptions 5–10 cm, 2–3 cm thick), fused at the base on a common thick stem or attached without a stem; the lobes are arranged in clusters, sometimes overlapping like roof tiles. Initially convex, then flat to slightly concave, becoming wavy with age. Margin sharp, often wavy or rolled under. Upper surface warty or covered with undeveloped, sterile, non-protruding spines and scales. Young fruiting bodies are whitish cream, then yellowish, finally yellowish-brown or ochre.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Spiny. Spines dense, vertical, whitish, 5–15 mm long, hanging from the underside of the lobes like icicles and forming tiers.

Stem

No true stem, or only a thick, short common stem on which the lobes fuse. No ring.

Flesh

The colour of the cap or slightly paler, cream; soft, thick, fleshy and brittle when young, later somewhat fibrous and hardening with age. The smell of young fruiting bodies is pleasant, sweetish and fruity; in older ones it can be very unpleasant. Taste mild. The flesh should not be tasted for identification.

Spore print and spores

Spore print white. Spores roundish or ellipsoid, smooth, amyloid, 3.5–4.5 × 3–4 µm.

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. Saprotroph, sometimes a parasite; causes white rot of wood. Grows on dead standing broadleaved trees, fallen logs and stumps, most often beech (Fagus sylvatica), and also oak, hornbeam, birch, poplar, sycamore maple, ash and elm. Occasionally found on still-living trees. Prefers old, well-preserved broadleaved and mixed forests. Fruiting bodies grow singly or in small groups, in which they may fuse together; at a given site they usually appear for only a few years.

Distribution. Recorded in North America, Europe, Asia (including Japan) and Australia. Widespread in Europe, from the Mediterranean to northern Scandinavia, but nowhere common. Rare in Poland, listed on the Red List of Plants and Fungi of Poland in category V (vulnerable); it is not under species protection in Poland. It is also on the red lists of many European countries (including Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Bulgaria).

Fruiting. From June to November (descriptions give different ranges: June–October and July–November).

What can it be confused with?

• Hericium coralloides (coral tooth fungus) — Fruiting body branched like a bush, with long hanging spines on the branches, rather than made up of horizontal, shell-shaped lobes with spines on the underside.
• Hericium erinaceus (lion's mane) — Fruiting body more globular, with distinctly longer spines, without bracket-shaped lobes.
• Hydnum repandum and Hydnum rufescens (hedgehog mushrooms) — They have a smooth cap, not a warty one or one covered with sterile spines; spines only under the cap, growing from the ground on a stem.
• Hericium flagellum (fir coral tooth) — Caution: similar protected species (partial protection in Poland), not included in the Atlas. Branched white fruit body with spines hanging from the branch tips, very similar to the coral tooth fungus; grows on dead fir trunks and stumps. Do not pick.

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 Persoon in 1794 as Hydnum cirrhatum; transferred to the genus Hericium by the Russian mycologist Taisiya Nikolayeva in 1950.
• The genus name Hericium means "hedgehog" and the epithet cirrhatum means "having tendrils"; both refer to the hanging spines.
• The English name "tiered tooth" refers to the spines hanging in tiers like icicles.
• In the United Kingdom the species was considered vulnerable, but in 2006 it was removed from the national Red List.