When: 2007-12-07
Collection location: Buttonwood, south Key Largo, Monroe Co., Florida, USA [Click for map]
Who: Jason Hollinger (jason)
Herbarium specimen available

Species Lists:
Mushrooms of Key Largo (39)

Notes: small to medium-sized shelf fungus, clustered on living bahama strongbark (Bourreria succulenta), KOH unknown, perennial but subsequent years’ growth is sort of irregularly blobbed on to previous growth making remarkably ugly irregular masses with fresh growing surfaces distributed semi-randomly throughout
CAP: my samples are 20-40mm wide but they get a fair bit larger, hoof-shaped, rich yellowish to rusty brown, dry, velvety, not zoned, v pitted and irreg surface
FLESH: tough, same color and texture as surface, 5-10mm thick
PORES: vivid lustrous yellowish brown or ochre, much smoother than upper surface, ~6 per mm, 1-2mm deep
SPORE: print appears to be whitish (but too faint to be absolutely sure)

These are highly specific to this genus of tree (other species of the genus Bourreria occur in hardwood hammocks on the Keys but I’ve never identified one, so I don’t know if it’s specific to the species or not). While in this particular hammock every single tree has this fungus on it, I have seen other hammocks with few or none present. I have never seen it on another tree (and I’ve looked hard!) I’ve watched this particular grove for several years, and apparently the fungus does little harm to the trees.

In fact, since the bare trunks of all the tropical hardwood trees in the Keys look virtually the same, the presence of this fungus is actually a very useful diagnostic character! The types of lichens are similarly diagnostic for several other species — a strong argument for encouraging interdisciplinary study in biology!

Based on the tough dry corky texture and the perennial growth habit, I’m placing it in Phellinus. As this is clearly a well-defined species, I’m trying out a feature of this website that apparently has not been used before(?), and coining a quoted name for it until I can find the proper one. How fun!

Proposed Names:   Propose Another Name

Proposed Name		User		Community Vote
Phellinus sp.		jason		29% (1)

Please login to propose your own names and vote on existing names.

= Observer’s choice

= Current consensus

Comments:   Add Comment

Created: 2007-12-11 07:14:03 By: Jason Hollinger (jason) Summary: Use of quoted names I guess I need to be more careful not to infer more than I should from reading through the code! Didn’t realize the double-quotes thing was a standardized convention in the scientific community.

Created: 2007-12-10 20:48:01 By: Nathan Wilson (nathan) Summary: Use of quoted names The quoted names are normally used for unpublished provisional names. Other examples include, Boletus “rexvernus”, Cantharellus “californicus”, Leucoagaricus “rubrofolia”, and Stropharia “alboambigua”. Your welcome to use them in the way you did, although the regular convention is to make them a plausible latin name. Unfortunately the definition of plausible is not simple to explain.

Observation Created: Mon Dec 10 08:44:41 -0800 2007
Last Modified: Tue Dec 11 07:11:38 -0800 2007 by Jason Hollinger (jason)
Viewed: 2 times, last viewed: Tue Nov 18 01:21:16 -0800 2008
Show Log