Adding New Fungi To My Identification Repertoire - Gilled Polypore

Continuing my foray into the woods today, I found lots of familiar mushrooms, but I also found a tricky one that looked so much like my old friend the turkey tail mushroom that I was surprised to turn it over and find that it had gills instead of pores.

This is Trametes betulina a.k.a. the gilled polypore. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trametes_betulina
Although softer that a regular bracket fungus, apparently it is not a tasty culinary variety, but probably has some medicinal value.

Here is it’s almost twin, the turkey tail mushroom or Trametes versicolor.

Here is the underside showing the pores.

Trametes versicolor has great medicinal value. There are currently many successful clinical trials using it to treat cancers.

Always be absolutely certain about a mushroom’s identification before consuming it.

Thanks for stopping by!