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| Turkeytail (Trametes versicolor) |
Spring is finally arriving in our chilly corner of England, and I've been out in the garden for the past few weeks, looking for new species to photograph. The other day, I found this lovely little bracket fungus growing on the stump of a shrub Mike removed last year. It's known as Turkeytail (Trametes versicolor), due to its strong resemblance to a real Wild Turkey's tail. Those concentric rings of colour come in many shades – brown, black, green, purple, grey or yellow – always with a pale outer margin. It's a very common fungus, widespread across the UK and throughout much of the rest of the world, growing on dead wood. Often, there are many tiers stacked up together; ours is a bit on the small side, with only two little caps. They can be seen every month of the year, though they tend to be most colourful (and thus most noticeable) in the autumn. In the past, these pretty little brackets were used as table and hat decorations. A compound extracted from the fungus is used in Japan in the treatment of some forms of cancer, and the fungus itself has been used in traditional medicines in both Japan and China for centuries.
