# 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.

- **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.

## About

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 .

## Sources

- Plate: https://gaia-dex.com/species/4a466270-b233-45ff-b41b-dd3334324cfb
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/348812
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganoderma brownii
- Conservation status: IUCN Red List category, as recorded by Gaia-Dex
- Photo: https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/349835505/medium.jpg (Alan Rockefeller, CC-BY, via iNaturalist)

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