With a little help from my friends

 Well, that was quick. A couple of days ago, I said I would look at the pores on a possible turkey tail polypore "next time". And then yesterday, a friend gave me one she had found a month ago, doing garden cleanup.

My friends photo, cropped. On old lilac wood.

So I ran this one through Michael Kuo's 5T questions. (Totally True Turkey Tail Test)

Same mushroom, on my desk, under bright lights.

It is, still a month after it was removed from the host, flexible. (Question # 6) The colours are strongly contrasting. (#4 & 5) Some of the rings are hairy, (#3) And it has pores on the underside. (#2)

Pores, seen under the hobby microscope. With a hand lens, just visible.

And the clincher: there are just over 3 pores per millimetre. (Question #1.)

With a metal ruler, marked in mm. Lines drawn to help with the count.

The verdict: a Totally True Turkey Tail.

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Hace un par de dias, al descubrir la prueba para identificar los hongos Cola de Pavo, prometí examinar los poros del próximo que encontraba. Y ayer una amiga me dió uno que había hallado en su jardín hace un mes.

Foto #1: El hongo, tal como lo encontró mi amiga. Esta foto es suya. Los hongos están creciendo en la madera de una vieja lila (Syringa sp.)

Me traje el hongo a casa y lo examiné siguiendo las preguntas del examen "5T" ("Prueba Absolutamente Verídica de los hongos Cola de Pavo.") de Michael Kuo.

Foto #2: El mismo hongo, en mi escritorio, bajo luz fuerte.

Resultados: Pregunta #6; sigue, aun después de un mes, flexible. #4 y 5: Los colores hacen contrastes fuertes. #3: Algunos de las zonas de color son velludas. Y #2: Tiene poros en la superficie inferior.

Foto #3; Los poros, vistos bajo mi microscopio estudiantil. Con una lente de mano son apenas visibles.

Y la prueba final: Pregunta #1: Hay más (apenas) de 3 poros por cada milímetro.

Foto #4: Los poros, con una regla marcada en mm.

El veredicto: este es un hongo Trametes versicolor.

Brand new turkey tails

6 weeks ago, I came across a cut stump in the grass at the Campbell River museum. The cut surface was covered with a fungus I couldn't identify.

As seen, September 18, 2021

Searching for mushrooms again last week, I checked out the same stump. Look at it now!

Fresh new turkey tails.

So that's one mystery solved.

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Hace mes y medio, encontré en un tronco viejo al lado del bosquecito del museo de Campbell River. Estaba cubierto de un hongo que no pude identificar.

Primera foto: el hongo como lo vi el 18 de septiembre.

La semana pasada, buscando hongos, volví a mirar el mismo tronco. Y ahora, ¡mira como se ha desarrollado!

Segunda foto: hongos "cola de pavo", Trametes versicolor.

Un misterio aclarado.

A soft coat for old wood

An old stump in Victoria, where it's warm and wet most of the winter, sports a full crop of turkey tail fungus.

One side of the stump. It's like that all the way around.

These are young turkey tails, still clean and pale coloured, still quite small. I don't know what kind of tree this was; a backyard shade tree, on the small side, cut to knee height.

One of the new stems of the shrub next to it had pierced a turkey tail. Or otherwise, the tail had captured the stem.

The mushroom looks fragile, but I couldn't pull the stem out of its grasp. To separate these two new friends, stump and shrub, now will take a knife.

The surface of the fungus feels velvety. Zooming in closer, I can see why:

Fuzzy

Zooming closer:

A warm winter coat for a dying leaf.