Channel: Paul Stamets

Category: Education

Description: The Trickster Form of the Artist Conk: Ganoderma applanatum group The artist conk is so named because you can sketch on its underside. Most North American field guides describe this species as Ganoderma applanatum but more recently the species in western North America is restricted to the species concept of Ganoderma brownii. No matter, they look about the same. . Usually this mushroom is broadly planar, a classic shelf forming fungus, adding a growth and pore layer each year. But here is the columnar form-which has tricked more than one aspiring mycologist! A perennial polypore, this species can grow for several decades, and become very large, sometimes a meter or more across! And it literally produces billions of spores, sometimes all at once, in an up-rising brown cloud. See David Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified for more information on the prodigious output of this species’s spore mass! . Popular with artists, who can draw upon its underside elaborate scenes. Marie Heerkens sketched this great rendition of a mushroom stone and Psilocybe cubensis which was gifted to me by a close friend. I collect all sorts of mushroom art, and this is one of my favorite. Steve and his son Cedar are featured here under the largest one I have personally seen, growing deep up the Duckabush river valley in the Olympic rainforest of Washington State. . A saprophytic mushroom, this polypore mushroom has had a long history of use in Asia, Europe and North America. Indigenous peoples used this mushroom not only for art, but I suspect it proved useful for drawing maps! . Once a month, I update a website for researchers and physicians at mushroomreferences.com (mushroomreferences dot com) wherein you can find recent research published in peer reviewed journals on its bioactive properties….and that of many species. Check out this website periodically for updates.