the.com/shelf fungus
nature's bracket organizing the slow demolition of every dead tree it touches
means A shelf fungus is a tough, often woody bracket-shaped mushroom that grows in horizontal tiers from the trunks and stumps of trees, feeding on the wood as it decays.
from A plain English compound: "shelf" for the flat, projecting ledge the fruiting body forms, plus "fungus," borrowed from Latin fungus, "mushroom" — itself possibly a cousin of the Greek sphongos, "sponge," reflecting that old, spongy, hard-to-classify family of growths. The name simply describes what the eye sees: a fungus that builds shelves. Its tidier twin, "bracket fungus," leans on "bracket" — a support jutting from a wall — for the same shape.
- lifespan
- some brackets live and grow for decades
- hardness
- woody conks can blunt a saw blade
- growth rings
- adds a new layer yearly like trees
- old medicine
- tinder conk used to cauterize wounds
- no roots
- feeds by digesting wood from inside out
artist's conk — ganoderma applanatum, grows on birch and oak trees across north america and europe
turkey tail — trametes versicolor, medicinal shelf fungus found worldwide on dead hardwood logs
reishi mushroom — ganoderma lucidum, prized in traditional chinese medicine for over 2,000 years