Trametes Elegans

Trying to find an alternative to the fountain of youth? The first use of a type of fungi called Ganoderma Lucidum can be traced back to the Han Dynasty, and was dubbed “The Mushroom of Immortality” in the Book of Han. The Trametes Elegans mushroom is a common polypore and wood-decay fungus with a pantropical distribution found on hardwood hosts in regions including eastern North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. A Trametes Elegans mushroom expert may say that this mushroom is thoroughly confused. It can’t make up its mind what kind of pore surface it wants to have: one with normal-looking, angular to roundish pores, or one with pores that are “daedaloid” or nearly “lamellate,” to use the official terms in Mycologese, which means “maze-like” and “gill-like,” respectively. In fact, you are likely to find all three conditions represented on the same mushroom – which turns out to help, rather than hinder, the identification process.