Genus: Polyporus (True polypore)

Polyporus (True polypore) - genus of fungi of family Polyporaceae.

Etymology

Polyporus, Polyporus. From πολύ (poly), many + πόρος (poros) m, pore, opening.

Type species

Polyporus tuberaster (Jacq. ex Pers.) Fr., Syst. mycol. (Lundae) 1: 347 (1821)

Description

Basidiomata annual, solitary, differentiated into cap and central, eccentric or lateral, well-developed or rudimentary, simple or branched stem.

Caps covered with cuticle, smooth, wrinkled or with scales, sometimes with pubescence along edge. Tissue white or light, soft-leathery or fibrous-leathery.

Hymenophore tubular, pores from very small to very large, alveolar.

Stem in many species covered with dark-brown or black cuticle.

Hyphal system dimitic, with binding or skeleto-binding hyphae. Generative hyphae thin-walled, hyaline, with or without clamp connections. Binding or skeleto-binding hyphae thick-walled to solid, without septa, branched.

Basidia clavate. Spores elongate-ellipsoid, cylindrical or fusoid, large, smooth, hyaline, non-amyloid. Cystidia absent. One species develops from sclerotia (Polyporus tuberaster).

Grow on wood, fallen or covered with soil, less frequently on tree roots or living and dead herbs or on soil, sometimes develop from sclerotium. Cause white rot.

Reference materials:

Bondartseva M. A. — Identification Guide to Fungi of Russia. Order Aphyllophorales. Issue 2 (1998)