Piptoporus australiensis

3 Curry Punk at Curtin, ACT

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Identification history

Piptoporus australiensis

25 Mar 2019

Heino1

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4 comments

Heino1 wrote:

25 Mar 2019

Photo 1 was taken by Julia Tresidder who kindly allowed its reproduction here and who also allowed me to collect this specimen that had grown from a very old blue gum stump in her garden. The other photos were taken on March 23, when I collected the specimen. Photo 3 shows the underside with a close-up view of the pores added at the bottom. Each of these pores is about a millimetre in diameter. The specimen measures close to 30 centimetres across. At the upper left you see one of my fingertips, stained when I handled this specimen. Several fruit bodies had grown out of this stump and some had fused. the cross-section view in Photo 4 shows two fused fruit bodies. The arrow points to a layer of spore-bearing tubes. Above that layer is the sterile, supporting tissue of one fruit body and its top has pushed into the tube layer of another fruit body. In Photo 5 I show a closer view of the spore-bearing tubes. The microscopic spore-bearing organs (the basidia) line the walls of the tubes. The arrow points to an invertebrate that is feeding in the tube layer.

Pam wrote:

26 Mar 2019

People often forget to smell them. It's great, they actually do smell like curry!

Heino1 wrote:

26 Mar 2019

Quite right, Pam! I forgot to mention that this had a weak curry/fenugreek smell when I collected it. When it was on the drier (to start getting it ready as a herbarium collection) it gave out a stronger aroma, which was nice for the person whose office is nearest the drier! If I were desperate for a curry fix I could resort to sniffing one of the dried herbarium specimens!

Pam wrote:

26 Mar 2019

Another plus for a fungus!

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