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Trametes versicolor: The Turkey Tail [ Basidiomycetes > Polyporales > Polyporaceae > Trametes . . . ] by Michael Kuo Trametes versicolor, often called the "Turkey Tail," has the dubious distinction of being the only member of the forest fungal fowl community not named for the full bird, but a feathery fraction. However, the Chicken of the Woods and the Hen of the Woods look nothing at all like chickens or hens, while the Turkey Tail does look (vaguely) like a turkey's tail. Who started this clucking menagerie of mushroom monikers, anyway? Was Old MacDonald a mycologist? The Turkey Tail is one of the most common mushrooms in North American woods, found virtually anywhere there are dead hardwood logs and stumps to decompose--and, occasionally, on conifer wood too. Its cap colors are extremely variable, but tend to stay in the buff, brown, cinnamon, and reddish brown range. The mushrooms are strikingly "zonate" with sharply contrasting concentric zones of color, and the surface of the cap is finely fuzzy or velvety. Often the zones represent contrasts in texture as well as color, so that fuzzy zones alternate with smoother ones. A number similar polypores, and even a few species of crust fungi, look more or less identical to the casual eye, and a whole host of mushrooms are thus lumped together as "Turkey Tails" by collectors who are more interested in gilled mushrooms and boletes. But if you are one of those folks, like me, who just has to be sure, I offer the Totally True Turkey Tail Test, below. Trametes versicolor is too tough and leathery to consider for the table--in the usual sense, where "table" is a metonym for the dining experience. However, the Turkey Tail makes a wonderful literal addition to the table as an ornament or centerpiece; it will dry in situ nicely, and hold its colors for years. Totally True Turkey Tail Test 1) Is the pore surface a real pore surface? Like, can you see actual pores?
No: See Stereum ostrea and other crust fungi. 2) Squint real hard. Would you say there are about 1-3 pores per millimeter (which would make them fairly easy to see), or about 3-8 pores per millimeter (which would make them very tiny)?
1-3 per mm: See several other species of Trametes. 3) Is the cap conspicuously fuzzy, velvety, or finely hairy (use a magnifying glass or rub it with your thumb)?
No: See many other species of Trametes. 4) Is the fresh cap whitish to grayish?
No: Continue. 5) Does the cap lack contrasting color zones (are the zones merely textural)?
No: Continue. 6) Is the fresh mushroom rigid and hard, or thin and flexible?
Thin and flexible: Totally True Turkey Tail. Description: Ecology: Saprobic on the dead wood of hardwoods, or rarely on the wood of conifers; annual; growing in dense, overlapping clusters or rosettes on logs and stumps; year-round; very widely distributed and common in North America; causing a white rot of the sapwood. Fruitbody: Up to 10 cm across; only a few mm thick; flexible when fresh; circular, semicircular, bracket-shaped, or kidney-shaped; densely hairy or velvety, often with alternating zones of texture; with concentric zones of white, brown, cinnamon, and reddish brown (but highly variable in color and sometimes with other shades). Pore Surface: Whitish to pale grayish; not bruising; pores tiny (4 or more per mm); tubes up to 3 mm deep. Flesh: Insubstantial; whitish; tough and leathery. Spore Print: Whitish. Microscopic Features: Spores 5-6 x 1.5-2 µ; smooth; cylindric. Coriolus versicolor is a synonym. REFERENCES: (Linnaeus, 1753) Pilat, 1936. (Overholts, 1953; Smith, Smith & Weber, 1981; Arora, 1986; Gilbertson & Ryvarden, 1987; States, 1990; Phillips, 1991/2005; Lincoff, 1992; Metzler & Metzler, 1992; Evenson, 1997; Barron, 1999; Roody, 2003.) Herb. Kuo 10270403, 11060401. Further Online Information: Trametes versicolor at MykoWeb |
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Cite this page as: Kuo, M. (2005, March). Trametes versicolor: The turkey tail. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/trametes_versicolor.html |