White Cheese Polypore

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White Cheese Polypore medium-sized, common, widespread, fleshy, bracket (shelf-like) fungus. It is not edible.

It lives on decaying stumps and logs (saprobic). It is found singly or in groups of two or three living usually on dead hardwoods, occasionally on dead conifers.

The fruiting body is annual. There is no stem.

The bracket (cap) is fan-shaped to semicircular in outline, broadly convex or flat, ¾″ to 4¾″ wide, and ¾″ to 3⅛″ deep, and ⅜″ to 1⅜″ thick. The upper surface is white and densely covered with fine, white hairs at first. As it ages it becomes hairless and yellowish-buff. Older specimens are crusty and wrinkled or shriveled. It does not have well-defined zones. The flesh is white, soft or spongy and watery, and fragrant when fresh,crumbly when dry. The texture of mature bracket is cheesy, which accounts for the common name of this fungus.

The pore surface on the underside of the bracket is white at first, becoming yellowish with age. There are 3 to 5 pores per millimeter. The pores may be 1 ⁄16″ to ¼″ deep, but are usually no more than ⅛″ deep. The spore print is white.

Woodlands. Usually on dead hardwoods, occasionally on dead conifers.

July through December

Sources

4, 7, 24, 26, 29 30, 77.

Common and widespread

A recent study (Justo et al., 2017) reviewed the Polyporales based on new molecular DNA data. The genera were realligned within three new and fifteen existing families. The genusTyromyces was transferred from the family Polyporaceae to the family Incrustoporiaceae. White Cheese Polypore is the only member of the family Incrustoporiaceae that occurs in Minnesota.

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Location: Minnesota Landscape Arborateum, Chanhassan, MN

Location: Martin County, Fairmont, MN

Location: SE Carlton County

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Growing on long dead Balsam or a white spruce - forgot to confirm - definitely a fir.