Since I did a post about turkey tail fungi last year and, since I have a few photos of some that I’ve seen recently, I thought I’d do another post about them this year.
Not that I’ve learned that much more information about them than I knew last year, but I do know that they are one of the most colorful fungi in the forest. They are also one of the easiest to find, because they grow in nearly every state in the country and throughout Europe, Asia. and Russia.
Turkey tail colors are described as buff, brown, cinnamon, and reddish brown, but “versicolor” means “having many colors” and as you can see by the photos, they also come in many shades of blue and purple. One of the important things to look for when searching for turkey tails is the concentric banding of colors. Another important feature is the porous underside. If you see gills, it isn’t a turkey tail.
Most turkey tails have hairs or fuzz on their upper surface but some are very fuzzy, as this photo of Trametes pubescens shows.”Pubescens” means hairy or downy and these certainly were. This fungus is often various shades of white, with very weak zoning, but it can also have tan and brown in its color scheme.
Here’s another look at Trametes pubescens, showing how it is often various shades of white and gray.
This fungus is not a turkey tail, but I wanted to show it as an example of “weak zoning,” where the difference in colors of the various bands is almost imperceptible. I think this might be a blushing bracket (Daedaleopsis confragosa). This fungus gets its common name from the way the white pores on its under surface “blush” pinkish red when it is handled.
For years now I’ve wondered what determines the colors that turkey tails display. Why are some brown and others blue? Or orange? Or purple? If the question has an answer I haven’t found it. Most of the ones I’ve seen this year are shades of blue and purple like last year, but three years ago they were shades of tan and brown.
This is another example of the purple / blue shades that I’m seeing so much of this year.
These look much more like the ones I saw three years ago, in various shades of brown and sometimes just a hint of purple or gray.
I think this might be the ocher bracket fungus (Trametes ochracea), which is much less flexible than true turkey tails (Trametes versicolor.) It can be very dark like the example in the photo or a much lighter, tan color.
This is another example of a false turkey tail and another good example of weak zoning. This Stereum fungus is more of a crust than a bracket fungus and it has no pores. Some varieties of this fungus are hairy and others “bleed” red latex when they are cut.
Other than their beauty, the thing that amazes me most about turkey tails is their value in cancer research. They have been used medicinally by the Chinese, Japanese, and Native Americans for thousands of years and the FDA has recently approved them for trials on cancer patients. It makes me wonder what else is in the forest, just waiting to be discovered.
Places that have been recently logged off are an excellent place to search for turkey tails because they grow on stumps and logs. Searching for them is a good way to burn off some of that Thanksgiving meal, too. When I visited the logged hillside in the above photo I saw hundreds of them in just a small area, so you don’t have to search very hard.
Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health. ~Paul Stamets
Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thanks for stopping in.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 