Artist's Conk
Ganoderma brownii
The fresh white underside of this bracket fungus bruises permanently brown when scratched, making it a popular natural medium for artists to etch detailed drawings.
- Scientific name
- Ganoderma brownii
- Taxonomy
- Fungi › Basidiomycota › Agaricomycetes › Polyporales › Polyporaceae › Ganoderma
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- stable
- Biome
- forest
- Habitat
- Temperate hardwood forests, specifically associated with living or dead deciduous trees such as the California bay laurel.
- Diet
- Saprotrophic and parasitic, obtaining nutrients by breaking down lignin and cellulose, causing white rot in host wood.
- Range
- North America, Pacific Coast, California, Oregon
- Size
- 10 to 40 cm in diameter, and up to 10 cm thick.
- Lifespan
- The fruiting body can persist and grow for 3 to 10 years, while the internal mycelium can live for decades.
- Active
- crepuscular
- Threats
- Deforestation, clear-cutting, and the excessive removal of deadwood and fallen logs from forest ecosystems.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless. This fungus is completely safe to touch. If you wish to draw on its white pore surface, do so gently with a stick without removing the conk from its host tree so it can continue to release spores. Do not ingest wild fungi unless identified by an expert.
Ganoderma brownii is a species of polypore fungus in the Ganodermataceae family. It is a plant pathogen and occasional saprotroph similar in appearance to Ganoderma applanatum . This species is restricted geographically to the Pacific Northwest, primarily observed in California. In the San Francisco Bay Area, it is very common on Umbellularia californica .
Photo: Alan Rockefeller, CC-BY, via iNaturalist
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