The reign of Polyporus squamosus

I have been rather busy lately, either reading books or exploring local parks and streets. Funnily enough, the below scenario was not something I came across by chance, but because someone else spotted the tree and I went and had a look to get my own lot of photos. I’m glad I did, because this horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is so riddled with Polyporus squamosus that it has even attracted those who would otherwise care not for fungi to take a look (a gentleman came by and asked me about the fungus when I was taking photos). The images really do speak for themselves, though also note this also has Ganoderma sp. (suspected G. australe) at the base – not shown here. Hopefully you find this lot of fungi as cool as I did!

A monolithed horse chestnut. The Ganoderma is at the base within the wound (and around the stem), whilst the Polyporus squamosus is so abundant nearer to the pruning wounds.

This shot captures most of the sporophores. Too many to count!

A few little water droplets on the upper ones (because it had been raining – quite hard).

A cluster of developing sporophores.

A glimpse of the wonderful upper surface of the bracket. Almost looks like the skin of a snake!

A closer look at one of the lower sets of sporophores.