Tinder funnel sulfur yellow

Fruit bodies are annuals, usually located not very high above the ground on tree trunks or stumps. At the first stage of development, the sulfur-yellow tinder looks like a teardrop-shaped yellowish fleshy mass from intense yellow to orange in color (“fused form”). Gradually, the fruit body hardens, acquiring the shape of an “ear” that is characteristic of polypore, consisting of several fused fan-shaped pseudo-hats, often sitting on one common base, occasionally solitary. The size of the caps is from 10 to 40 cm. The maximum thickness at the tree trunk is about 7 cm. The mass of the mushroom can reach 10 kg or more. The edges of the fruit bodies are wavy and divided into lobes by deep cracks. The mushroom is always covered with a light cream-yellow fluff.

The pulp is soft and juicy, rather brittle, white, sour taste. The smell is faint, at first lemon, and later becomes unpleasant, like a mouse. When dried, it becomes brittle, fibrous and very light.

The tubular hymenophore with small rounded or serrated pores (3-5 per mm). Young mushrooms abundantly produce yellowish watery droplets. The tubules are yellow, short, 2-4 mm long.

Spore powder is pale cream. Generative hyphae in the tissue are thin-walled, with simple septa, relatively rarely branching, ∅ 4-12 microns. With age, binding hyphae appear with thickened or thick walls, strongly branching, with branches extending from the main trunk, ∅ 4–20 μm, completely replacing generative ones. The basidia are club-shaped, with 2–4 sterigmas .

Variability

The old mushroom turns pale, acquiring a gray-yellow dull color. The older the fungus, the more isolated its fruiting bodies.

Varieties

A fungus growing on conifers is sometimes considered an independent species ( Laetiporus conifericola Burds. & Banik , 2001 ) ^[1] . This variety should not be eaten, as it can cause mild poisoning, especially in children.

Popular name: witch sulfur, kulina .

Scientific synonyms :

• Boletus sulphureus Bull., 1789 basionym
• Cladomeris sulphurea (Bull.) Bigeard & H. Guill., 1909
• Polyporus sulphureus (Bull.) Fr., 1821
• Sporotrichum versisporum (Lloyd) Stalpers, 1984 ( basionym Calvatia versispora Lloyd, 1915)
• and etc.

Wood-destroying mushroom is a parasite that infects poplar , oak , willow , linden , birch , cedar , pine , maple , walnut , chestnut , fruit trees, larch , less often spruce and other types of trees.

Causes red-brown destructive stem rot , red-brown prismatic core rot. Mostly affects the sound part of the tree trunk, less often sapwood .

Stem rot usually develops in old trees. Its length is on average 3 m, but can reach 20 m. With a strong development of rot in the affected trees, the branches begin to dry out, then the whole tree dries out. Rotting occurs through broken branches, burns and wounds on the surface of the trunks. Laetiporus sulphureus is able to continue its development on dead wood several years after the death of the tree. In Western Siberia, larch trees shrunk due to the defeat of the trunk with a sulfur yellow tinder in the larch forests of the Ob region comprise ~ 3-5% of the total number of trees in the forest. Infection with fungus, especially in larch trees older than 200 years, reaches 25%. In alpine larch forests, infection with sulfur yellow tinder is negligible.

Season : In Russia, Ukraine meets from the last decade of May to September. It develops most intensively from late May to late June.

Edible:

• The giant Meripilus ( Meripilus giganteus ), differs not bright yellow, but brownish in color and white flesh.

Weakly toxic varieties or other species of Laetiporus can be distinguished by the species of the host tree:

• Laetiporus conifericola grows on conifers.
• Laetiporus gilbertsonii - on eucalyptus trees ^[2] .

Nutritional qualities

In its young form, the fungus is edible after heat treatment. It has a pleasant mushroom smell , sour taste ^[3] . Young, tender and supple used in salads, soups, fried, salted and pickled. Many mycologists, for example, Russian mycologist Mikhail Vishnevsky ^[3] and German mycologists Rita Lüder ^[4] and Andreas Gminder ^[5] , consider young specimens of sulfur-yellow tinder to be edible and tasty. Vishnevsky separately emphasizes the suitability of this mushroom for pickling ^[3] . Sometimes it is pre-boiled for 30-45 minutes before further cooking. Mushroom stuffing is a delicious filling for pies. Minced meat is suitable for egg casseroles.

In some regions of North America, the mushroom is called "wood chicken", "mushroom chicken" or "forest crab" ( English chicken of the woods, chicken mushroom, crab-of-the-woods ) ^[6] . As a substitute for meat, it can be used in vegetarian cuisine. Tinder fungus sulfur-yellow can be stored frozen for a long time.

Possible side effects

Tinder funnel sulfur-yellow is an edible mushroom after minimal heat treatment, containing no poisons or toxins. However, digestion is sometimes (not often) observed, accompanied by nausea, diarrhea, and malaise. These ailments do not entail any consequences, unlike some poisonous mushrooms. The reason for this may be mushroom specimens grown on poisonous or coniferous trees, or old specimens in which the decomposition process has already begun, or a small risk of confusing the sulfur-yellow tinder fungus with other species. At the moment, there are only assumptions why few people have such a reaction to the sulfur-yellow tinder, there is no evidence so far, even when eating mushrooms grown on a poisonous yew ^[5] .

For eating, only young mushrooms that are still soft ^[5] and have not acquired an unpleasant odor should be collected. Also, one should not pick mushrooms growing on conifers or, especially, on poisonous trees such as yew ^[7] . However, this rule applies to all mushrooms growing on trees that are harvested for consumption. The German Mycology Society included sulfuric yellow tinder in the list of mushroom species with an ambiguous assessment of nutritional value, which also includes honey mushrooms and butterfish , due to infrequent cases of malaise. ^[7] One case of ataxia and visual hallucinations in a child has been reported ^{[2] [8]} , however, we are talking about eating raw mushroom.

Medical use

The fungus is known as a source of several antibiotics that are active against resistant forms of staphylococci ^[9] .

• Mushroom lesions of wood

• Lesso T. Mushrooms, qualifier / transl. from English L.V. Garibova, S.N. Lekomtseva. - M .: Astrel, AST, 2003. - S. 215. - ISBN 5-17-020333-0 .

• Taxonomy and scientific descriptions at www.mycobank.org
• Good photo of the mushroom
• A collection of photos of sulfur-yellow tinder fungus from mycoweb.narod.ru
• Dishes from tinder fungus sulfur yellow