THE BOSTON MYCOLOGICAL CLUB Sighting: Piptoporus betulinus

Ahhh... you know this one. It's very common. All the books show it as a "hoofed" shaped polypore that grows on dead birch trees. But have you seen these?....

This one was growing on a fallen birch near the ground. It is 9" across. Above is the top view, with a penny to give some scale. Below is a side view - sorta looks like an alien spacecraft, doesn't it?

These are always shown with their stem lateral... But wait... here's one with a central stem. This side view (below) shows the curvy edges as seen from the side.

But here's a top view of it, showing the central (well, a bit off center) stem. This one is about 7" across.

Finally (apparently, you've scrolled down this far...) there is this one with a "central" stem, but in a different sense. It couldn't make up its mind which side to grow on, so it did some of each!

Just in case you're wondering if the pore surface is connected around the "backside" in the photo above, here's a photo of the bottom of this mushroom, after it was picked:

And for a last curtain call... here's our trio, relaxing on Saturday morning...