# White Cheese Polypore

*Tyromyces chioneus*

When fresh and moist, this fungus has a soft, cheese-like texture and releases a pleasant, slightly acidic, yeast-like aroma.

- **Taxonomy:** Fungi › Basidiomycota › Agaricomycetes › Polyporales › Incrustoporiaceae › Tyromyces
- **IUCN Red List status:** Least Concern
- **Population trend:** stable
- **Biome:** forest
- **Habitat:** Deciduous and mixed forests, growing on dead or decaying hardwood logs and branches, particularly birch.
- **Diet:** Saprotrophic, decomposing cellulose and lignin to cause white rot.
- **Range:** North America, Europe, Asia
- **Size:** Cap width 2-8 cm, thickness 1-2 cm.
- **Lifespan:** Fruiting body lasts 1 season (a few months); underground mycelium can live for decades.
- **Active:** diurnal
- **Threats:** Deforestation and intensive forestry management that removes deadwood habitats.
- **Safe to approach?:** Harmless. This shelf fungus is non-toxic to touch but is tough and inedible. It can be safely examined up close. Wash hands after handling wild fungi, and never ingest any mushroom unless identified by a professional.

## About

Tyromyces chioneus , commonly known as the white cheese polypore , is a species of polypore fungus. A widely distributed fungus, it has a circumpolar distribution, in temperate boreal pine forests, of Asia, Europe, and North America, causes white rot in dead hardwood trees, especially birch

## Sources

- Plate: https://gaia-dex.com/species/2bc6f4a2-daf8-4ed0-9758-1961272ca0a2
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/130946
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyromyces chioneus
- Conservation status: IUCN Red List category, as recorded by Gaia-Dex
- Photo: https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/243243122/medium.jpeg (no rights reserved, CC0, via iNaturalist)

Habitat, diet, size and similar notes are AI-written summaries; check them against the linked sources before relying on them.