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Tinder bracket fungus

 

 

The rain has melted almost all of the snow on the forest floor and bird spring gets going by and by, the more beautiful the day the more vociferous they are.

 

The tinder bracket fungus still had a practical use a hundred years ago: with coals from the fireplace on a dried tinder bracket fungus it was possible to light a fire again even after some hours, and even after fire steels had been introduced the tinder bracket was carried along to catch the sparks from the fire iron and blow them into glow  ….

 

A recognisable fungus in the forest, most commonly on fallen trunks of birch or alder (more seldom on aspen, lime, maple or oak). If the wind carries spores from the tinder bracket to trees with damaged bark the fungus begins to develop there.

 

The fruiting body of the tinder bracket is covered by a nice cap with a hard rind, diameter up to some tens of centimetres, with a surface marked with growth “zones” covering the brown flesh of the mushroom. It is level on the cap, slightly bulging on the underside and as hard as wood. On a several years old fungus the cap has faded to an ashen grey, on young specimens it is striped in brown

 

It can be confused with:  

Willow bracket fungus  Phellinus igniarius

or

Artist's bracket    Ganoderma applanatum