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Norwegian Chaga.pdf - The Mushroom Hunter

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<strong>Norwegian</strong> Fungus of the Month February 2001<br />

<strong>Norwegian</strong> Fungus of the Month - February 2001<br />

Inonotus obliquus (Fr.) Pilat<br />

(Hymenochaetaceae, Hymenochaetales, Basidiomycota)<br />

Inonotus obliquus is an interesting polypore,<br />

as it has two completely different life<br />

stages. In Norway, the species is more or<br />

less restricted to Betula, where it makes<br />

itself evident by large black cankers, often<br />

located high above the ground on living trees.<br />

This stage is perennial and the cankers grow<br />

to large sizes, often 20 cm or more in<br />

diameter and 5 to 10 cm thick. <strong>The</strong><br />

consistency is very hard and one needs an axe<br />

to remove it from the trunk. <strong>The</strong> inner parts<br />

of the canker are dark brown with a pattern<br />

of white spots. <strong>The</strong>re is no production of<br />

conidia or similar dispersal units from the<br />

surface of the black canker, and its function<br />

or purpose is a mystery.<br />

<strong>The</strong> growth form reminds one of a tumour, and the popular <strong>Norwegian</strong> name is<br />

"kreftkjuke" i.e. cancer polypore. In Russia, the fungus has been used for<br />

treatment of all sorts of ailments, such as stomach cancer, as told by<br />

Solsinitjin in his famous book “Gulag Archipelago”. However, in Scandinavia<br />

this use is unknown.<br />

Because the fungus begins by attacking only the central trunk as a heartrot,<br />

an infected tree can live with I. obliquus for many years, as no harm is done<br />

to the peripheral and more vital parts of the trunk. However, in the end, such<br />

trees die, usually as a standing trunk loosing it’s branches.<br />

<strong>The</strong> summer after the tree has died, the bark splits and a brown resupinate<br />

basidiocarp develops on the exposed wood. Since this happens while the tree<br />

http://www.uio.no/conferences/imc7/NFotm2001/February2001.htm (1 of 2)1/14/2006 2:35:21 PM


<strong>Norwegian</strong> Fungus of the Month February 2001<br />

is standing, the pores are usually very oblique, thus the Latin epithet. <strong>The</strong><br />

basidiocarp are very rapidly eaten by insects, which probably help with<br />

dispersal.<br />

Strangely enough, the perfect poroid basidiocarp develops only once. Later<br />

on, several other polypores colonize the wood where the perfect basidiocarp<br />

grew. Gloeoporus dichrous (Fr.) Bres. is one of the species that frequently<br />

occur in such places.<br />

http://www.uio.no/conferences/imc7/NFotm2001/February2001.htm (2 of 2)1/14/2006 2:35:21 PM

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