Stereum purple (Chondrostereum purpureum)
Systematics:- Department: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
- Order: Agaricales (Agaric or Lamellar)
- Family: Cyphellaceae (Cyphellaceae)
- Genus: Chondrostereum (Hondrostereum)
- Species: Chondrostereum purpureum (Stereum purple)
Other names:
Chondorostereum purple
Stereum purple-violet
Description:
The fruit body is small, 2-3 cm long and about 1 cm wide, at first prostrate, resupinate, in the form of small spots, then fan-shaped, adherent to the side, thin, with a wavy slightly drooping edge, tomentose-fleecy on top, light, grayish-beige, brownish or pale gray-brownish, with faint concentric darker areas, with a lilac-white growing edge. After frost, in winter and spring, it fades to a grayish-brownish color with a light edge and hardly differs from other stereums.
The hymenophore is smooth, sometimes irregularly wrinkled, lilac-brown, chestnut-purple or brown-purple with a light whitish-lilac edge.
The pulp is thin, soft-skinned, with a spicy smell, two-layer colored: at the top it is grayish-brownish, dark gray, at the bottom - light, cream.
Spread:
Purple stereum grows from mid-summer (more often from September) to December on dead wood, stumps, construction wood, or parasitizes at the base of the trunks of living deciduous trees (birch, aspen, elm, ash, ash maple, cherry), often in numerous tiled groups, often. Causes white rot and milky shine disease in fruit stone fruit trees (in the middle of summer a silvery bloom appears on the leaves, the branches dry out after 2 years).
Rating:
Inedible mushroom.