A hard, perennial brown-rot conk of conifers and hardwoods in Canada and the northern United States, with a black, brown and gray cap and no red marginal band. It is one of three North American species formerly lumped under the Eurasian Fomitopsis pinicola. Haight et al. (2019) confirmed it as distinct from F. pinicola, which they found does not occur in North America.
Not edible; a hard, woody conk. Medicinal uses and studies published under the name Fomitopsis pinicola may involve this or other North American species.
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Saprobic, and on living trees, on hardwoods and conifers, including quaking and balsam poplar (Populus tremuloides, P. balsamifera), water birch (Betula occidentalis), balsam fir, black spruce and hemlock; a brown-rot fungus. Perennial.
Distribution
Canada (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland) and the northern United States (from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah east to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire and Maine), extending south to Georgia in the Appalachians (Haight et al. 2019).
Characteristics
Cap: shelf- to hoof-shaped, woody; crust black, brown and gray, without the reddish laccate band typical of F. mounceae. Pore surface: pale, sometimes receding from the margin. Flesh: woody, azonate. Fungi on Wood (MushroomExpert) reports that its crust does not bubble when heated with a match flame. Microscopy or DNA may be needed to separate it from band-less F. mounceae.
