Scaly Sawgill

Description

The Scaly Sawgill has a cap usually 5–11 cm across, cream to pale brown, covered with dark brown scales arranged concentrically. The gills are white and run down the stem, which is covered with dark scales below the ring zone and darkens to brown or black at the base. The flesh has a sweetish, aniseed-like smell and quickly becomes tough; in older fruiting bodies it is resilient like wood.

It grows from June to November, singly or in tufts, on dead coniferous wood, mainly pine and larch: on stumps, roots, beams, posts and railway sleepers. It is found in forests, but also in towns and other places with wooden structures.

It is distinguished from similar species by its growth on coniferous wood, its scaly cap and stem, and its aniseed smell. The species is inedible, so do not collect it for eating.

Identification features

Cap

Diameter usually 5–11 cm, up to about 13 cm. Conical or convex when young, later flat with a blunt umbo or shallowly depressed in the centre; the margin stays enrolled for a long time. Surface dry and matt, cream and whitish to pale brown, covered with adpressed, dark brown scales arranged concentrically — larger and denser in the centre, finer towards the margin.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Gills broad, white, broadly adnate to decurrent on the stem (down to the ring zone), with wavy, serrated edges. With age the gills may darken to reddish.

Stem

Height 3–7 cm (up to about 12 cm), thickness up to 2 cm, cylindrical or conical, solid and resilient. The whitish surface above the ring zone (in young specimens with a felty sheath, in some descriptions with a ring) is smooth, and below it is covered with dark scales; the base is brown to blackish brown. With age the stipe may turn reddish.

Flesh

Whitish; soft in young specimens, hard, resilient and woody in older ones. Odour sweetish, aniseed-like; taste indistinct. Do not taste the flesh.

Spore print and spores

Spore print white. Spores smooth, cylindrical to ellipsoid, about 8–15 × 3.5–5 µm (descriptions give different ranges).

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. Saprotroph on dead wood, mainly coniferous (pine, larch), less often on hardwood. Grows on stumps, roots, fallen logs, beams, posts and railway sleepers. Causes brown rot of wood (so-called wet rot of structural timber); tolerates treated wood, including wood treated with creosote. It is an important wood decomposer in the forest, but also a pest of building timber.

Distribution. The whole Northern Hemisphere (Europe, North America); also reported from the Western Cape in South Africa. In Poland not uncommon in coniferous and mixed forests, on conifer plantations and in altered habitats: on railway sleepers, in towns and even in coal mines. It is not legally protected in Poland.

Fruiting. From June to November (in North America from May to November).

What can it be confused with?

• Neolentinus ponderosus — No partial veil, and therefore no ring on the stem.
• Pleurotus levis — Grows on hardwood; cap fuzzier, without scales.

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

• In English it is called the "train wrecker" because it destroys wooden railway sleepers.
• It tolerates wood treated with creosote and other preservatives, and is therefore sometimes used in studies of the effectiveness of wood treatment.
• Originally described in 1815 by Elias Fries as Agaricus lepideus; it was moved to the genus Neolentinus in 1985.
• Fruiting bodies have even been found in coal mines, on the wooden supports.