False Tinder Fungus: The Dangerous Parasite Lurking in Your Garden

Hello Friends!

This is my another contribution to #FungiFriday by @ewkaw.

Today I want to introduce you to a parasitic mushroom, which my daughter really liked.
She chipped off the edge of the mushroom while playing with it for a long time "preparing Dad's dinner" before I was able to take a picture of it.
This is false tinder fungus or Fomes Fomentarius

The false tinder fungus is classified as an inedible mushroom due to its rather hard pulp, which does not soften even with prolonged heat treatment. Therefore, such hoof-shaped mushrooms are used only in folk medicine. At an early stage of development, the fruiting body of the false tinder fungus can be round, attractively pink in color. In the process of growth and reproduction, the fungus takes on a hoof-like shape, changes its delicate pink color to dark brown, with a hardened tubular layer in the form of a growth along the edge.

In fact, this is a very dangerous wood-destroying and parasitic fungus that grows on rotting wood, climbing under the bark or cracks, causing devastating damage to the garden plot.

The False tinder fungus quite often become the cause of serious tree diseases. Due to the presence in the wood of the mycelium of the parasitic fungus, in the trunk of a once healthy fruit tree, white and yellow rot develops that can destroy the entire tree. Perennial parasitic fungi settle on dead trunks and stumps, wounded and broken branches of living trees.

But this is a very interesting material that is easier to process than wood. You can do some useful crafts with it. For example, it came to my mind: stickers for furniture legs so that the floor does not scratch, a hot stand - a kettle or a soldering iron, overlays for tool handles ... I wonder if it smokes when burned? If not, then it can make a wick for a candle or an oil burner. We need experiments.
In any case, we took this mushroom with us. Maybe someday I'll get around to using it.