6 Wood Discoloration

8.3 Tree Rots by Macrofungi 197
A part of a fruit body was found at the “Ötzi” mummy. Still, around 1890, about
50 t of trama per year were sampled in the Bavarian, Bohemian and Thuringian
forests for fire igniting, as styptic, and for the production of hoods, gloves and
trousers (Hübsch 1991; Scholian 1996).
Significance: one of the most remarkable “large polypores”; infection of
weakened and old trees via bark wounds or branch breakings; natural member
in the biocoenosis of birch and beech forests; simultaneous white rot with
black demarcation lines; at final stage, danger of windthrow; involved in the
final decay of beech bark-diseased trees; saprobe on thrown or felled trees for
several years (“Verstocken”).
8.3.5
Laetiporus sulphureus, Sulphur Polypore, Giant Sulphur Clump
Occurrence: cosmopolitan, Europe, western North America, northeast Asia;
preferentially on hardwoods with colored heartwood, like oak and robinia,
also apple, beech, cherry, elm, lime tree, maple, pear, plum, poplar, willow,
rarely on conifers; common on park and urban trees (Schwarze 2002);
Fruit body (Fig. 8.15b): annual (summer to autumn), conspicuous (upper
surface: sulfur-yellow to reddish) wavy-velvety brackets (15–40 cm); pore surface:
sulfur-yellow with angular pores (3–4/mm); single or in clusters; fresh:
succulent-soft, later: inflexible, chalk-like, straw-colored to grey; dimitic; eaten
in North America;
Significance: infection of the stemwood usually via wounds; brown rot in
the heartwood; yellowish mycelium in broad, bind-like strips along the tears
and shakes that develop in the wood; sapwood usually not attacked; infected
trees alive for many years till broken or thrown by storm; rarely saprobic, e.g.,
on wooden boats.
8.3.6
Meripilus giganteus, Giant Polypore
Occurrence: circumboreal in the northern hemisphere, but nowhere common;
usually hardwoods, particularly horse chestnut, beech, lime and oak; often on
park and urban trees (Seehann 1979; Schwarze 2003);
Fruit body (Fig. 8.15c): annual (summer to autumn) on stumps of freshly
felled trees and at the basis of standing trees; often apparently growing from
the ground, but always in contact to wood; large and pileate with fan-shaped
to spatulate pilei from a common base; aggregates to 1 m in diameter and 70 kg
fresh weight; upper surface: cream-white to yellow-brown zonate; pore surface:
cream to yellow-orange-brown pores (3–5/mm), rapidly blackish when
bruised or cut; monomitic; eaten in Japan;
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