Grifola umbrella, branched tinder, umbrella tinder - all these are the names of the same fungus Polýporus umbellatus of the Polyporaceae family. The fungus is distributed in Western Europe and North America, in the Urals, in the Smolensk and Moscow regions of Russia, in Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus. Edible, tasty, sweetish in taste, but a very rare mushroom. This tinder fungus has fruit body sizes from 10 to 50 cm in width and height. White legs at the base are most often connected. Numerous fibrous, rounded, small-scaled caps, similar to an umbrella concave in the middle, with a sharp edge, resemble tiles with a diameter of 1-4 cm in their arrangement. They are painted off-white or brownish. The branched tinder fungus has a spore powder and a fleshy cream or white flesh with a dill smell. The pulp of the fungus becomes more rigid and tasteless with age. This species is listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation.

Grifola umbrella grows on stumps of hardwoods and at the base of trunks. It is predominantly found at the base of birches, oaks, maples and beeches. As an exception, it occurs on spruce and fir. Grifola is quite rare, single specimens, less often - in small groups. It is harvested mainly from June to September, but fruiting bodies are not formed every year. They are cut in the same way as other mushrooms, at the root. This type of tinder fungus can be confused with the leafy tinder fungus, which is distinguished by darker brownish fan-shaped hats.

Photo of tinder fungus

Growing methods

Umbrella tinder is grown mainly in two ways:

1. To grow tinder fungus in this way, it is necessary to withstand the following conditions: relative humidity in the room is more than 80%, air temperature is 20 ± 2 ° C, constant air circulation and natural light changes. The substrate for the growth of the fungus is a mixture of various solid plant residues (shavings, bark, corn cobs, sawdust, small branches, reeds, etc.), which are poured with boiling water. After the mixture has cooled to room temperature, it is well squeezed out and mixed with mycelium at the rate of 100 g of mycelium per 35 kg of substrate. The resulting mixture is laid out in transparent plastic bags, tied, several small holes are made for ventilation and placed in a specially prepared room. After the appearance of the first shoots, cuts are made in the bag to release the mushrooms. The first wave of seedlings should be expected 30-40 days after planting.
2. Cultivation takes place in natural conditions. The observed effect of this method should be expected no earlier than 4 months after planting the mycelium. The substrate is hemp, wooden blocks. For 100 g of mycelium, 35 kg of substrate is taken. The prepared substrate is soaked for 3-4 days in water. Files are made in the bars or holes are drilled, which are filled with mycelium (100 g of mycelium per 35 kg of wood), then covered with leaves or pieces of bark. Bars with mushrooms are placed in a shady place, sometimes dropping a little. In dry times, watering is recommended. Landing can be carried out at any time of the year. Fruiting begins under optimal conditions environment and happens 4-5 times a year.

• Division: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
• Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
• Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
• Subclass: Incertae sedis (of uncertain position)
• Order: Polyporales (Polypore)
• Family: Polyporaceae (Polyporaceae)
• Genus: Polyporus (Polyporus)
• View: Polyporus umbellatus (Umbrella fungus)

Other names for mushroom:

Synonyms:

• Grifola umbrella;

• Grifola branched;

• Trutovik branched;

• Polypore branched;

• Polypore umbrella;

• Grifola umbellata.

The tinder fungus is an original bushy mushroom. The tinder fungus belongs to the polypore family. The fungus is found in the European part of Russia, in Siberia and even in the Polar Urals, it was found in North America, as well as in the forests of Western Europe.

Fruiting body - numerous legs, which are connected at the bottom into one base, and caps.

Hat the mushroom has a slightly wavy surface, in the center there is a small depression. Some specimens have small scales on the surface of the cap. A group of mushrooms forms one settlement, in which there can be up to 200 or more individual specimens.

Numerous tubules are located on the lower part of the cap, the pores of which reach sizes up to 1-1.5 mm.

pulp the tinder fungus has an umbrella white color, has a very pleasant smell (you can feel the aroma of dill).

Cylindrical leg the mushroom is divided into several branches, at the top of each is a hat. The legs are soft and very thin. Usually the legs of the mushrooms are combined into a single base.

controversy are white or cream in color and cylindrical in shape. The hymenophore is tubular, like all tinder fungi, descending far along the stem. The tubes are small, short, white.

The umbrella fungus usually grows at the bases of deciduous trees, prefers maple, linden, oaks. Occurs rarely. Season: July-early November. The peak is in August-September.
The favorite places for the location of the vulture are the roots of trees (prefers oak, maple), deadwood, stumps, and also rotting forest litter.

It is a saprotroph.

Similar to the umbrella polypore is or, as it is also called by the people, the ram mushroom. But the latter has lateral legs, and the hat is also fan-shaped.

Grifola umbrella belongs to rare species of polyporous fungi. Listed in the Red Book. Protection is required, as populations are disappearing (deforestation, logging).

It is an edible mushroom with good taste. The pulp of the mushroom is very soft, tender, has a pleasant taste (but only in young mushrooms). Old mushrooms (finally ripe) have a burning and not very pleasant smell.

The umbrella tinder fungus is a conditionally edible mushroom of the Polypore family, which grows as a bush on a tree.

Trutovik umbrella: botanical description

The tinder fungus is a fairly large bushy mushroom, which consists of many legs and hats, striated at the base. The upper part of the mushroom has an umbrella shape with a slightly wavy edge and a small depression in the center. It is covered with a thin, light brown, velvety skin, which is strewn with rather small scales. Under it lies a white, dense flesh with a brightly grown dill aroma.

The spore-bearing layer is tubular with small, thin, short, descending tubules. There is no protective cover. Cream or white spores are cylindrical.

Soft, short, thin, cylindrical legs have a slight fork at the top.

Trutovik umbrella: history

The first description of the umbrella tinder fungus dates back to 1801. The Swedish botanist Christian Heinrich Persun was engaged in its study and description, but he ranked this mushroom in the Boletov family. This mistake was soon corrected by the equally famous mycologist Elias Magnus Fries in 1821.

Trutovik umbrella: features of the name

The generic scientific name of the tinder fungus is "polyporus". It translates as "many pores", which is primarily associated with the tubular spore-bearing layer of the fungus.

But the specific name has almost the same meaning, both in Latin and in Russian, and sounds like "the one that has umbrellas." This is due to the characteristic umbrella shape of the tinder caps.

Trutovik umbrella: where it grows

The natural range of the tinder fungus is located in the Northern Hemisphere. It is often found in Western Europe, Siberia, the Polar Urals and North America in deciduous and mixed forests. The tinder fungus prefers to grow on the trunks of deciduous trees such as linden, maple and oak. Also occasionally it can be found on stumps, fallen trees and in damp forest floor.

Due to rampant deforestation, this mushroom is classified as an endangered species, so its collection is prohibited at the legislative level. However, the law does not prohibit the cultivation of this mushroom, so it can be grown without problems on a personal plot.

Tinder fungus: application

The umbrella tinder fungus, although it is considered a conditionally edible mushroom, is still quite often eaten. In cooking, it is most often used for cooking fried and boiled dishes. It is believed that in order for its taste to be revealed to the maximum, it is necessary to cook it in butter or sunflower oil.

In addition, the umbrella fungus has a fairly rich chemical composition, therefore, it has pronounced immunostimulating, antitumor, anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective properties.

LATIN NAME: Polyporus umbellatus (Pers.) Fr.; Grifola umbellata (Pers.) Pilat; Sderotium giganteum Rostr.

RUSSIAN NAME:

CHINESE NAME: Wild zhulin, pig dung tench, chicken dung tench, pink zhulin

TAXONOMICAL STATUS:

1. Class: Basidiomycetes
2. Order: Aphyllophorales
3. Family: Polyporaceae

Morphological features

Basidiomas are annuals, formed from underground sclerotia, reaching 50 cm in diameter. They consist of numerous (up to 100) branched, bearing small hats, clearly visible, white legs, connected at the base into a common tuberous stump. Separate caps are fibrous-fleshy, rounded, slightly convex, flat or with a slight depression in the center, wavy, small, 10-40 mm in diameter, with a solid or lobed edge that turns inward when dried. The surface of the caps is light ocher or brownish, smooth, bare, less often finely scaly or indistinctly radially striated, wrinkled when dried. The pulp is white, dense, fleshy, fibrous, with a characteristic dill smell. The tubules are white, very short, low to the stem, up to 2 mm long.

The surface of the hymenophore is white, cream or yellowish. Pores at first irregularly rounded, then polygonal, with fringed edges in old age, average 1-2(3) per 1 mm on the cap. The stump at the base of the basidioma is thick, up to 30 mm in diameter, thinning towards the caps, repeatedly branched into smaller and thinner central legs, white, cream and yellowish in color. The hyphal system is dimitic. The generative hyphae are hyaline, with thin or slightly thickened walls, varying diameter, numerous clamps, up to 9(12) µm in diameter. Connecting hyphae are observed only in tubules, thick-walled to continuous, densely branching, hyaline, up to 15 µm in diameter. Basidia club-shaped, 2- or 4-spore, 25-40x5-8 µm. Spores are cylindrical or fusiform, obliquely drawn at the base, hyaline, 7-10x(2.5)3-4 µm, often with droplets of fat.

Sclerotium underground, truffle-like, dimensions reach 25-40x30-100 mm, dense. The surface of the sclerotium is purple-black with numerous sinuous folds, wrinkles and swellings. The internal tissues of the sclerotium are white or light brown in color, cork-like, elastic. When dried, the sclerotium becomes hard, woody.

Ecology and distribution

It occurs at the base of trunks and stumps of deciduous trees, mainly maple (Acer), hornbeam (Carpinus), oak (Quercus), less often alder (Ahius); sometimes found under conifers - spruce (Picea), pine (Pinus). Causes white rot. The fruiting period is summer-autumn. Widely distributed, but rare everywhere. It is found in Europe, North America, Russia, China (in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, Hebei, Henan, Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai).

Nutritional and chemical composition

In Japan, it was found that the sclerotium of the tinder fungus contains ergosterol, a crude protein, the mass fraction of which is 7.89%, ether-soluble substances - 0.24%, crude fiber - 46.06%, soluble sugars - 0.5%, water - 13 .44%, ash elements - 6.64%. In addition, the composition of the fungus includes poliose, which does not crystallize. Active immunostimulating components β-glucans.

Pharmacological value

It is mainly used for difficult or painful urination, in the treatment of acute nephritis, edema, thirst, polyuria, jaundice, cirrhosis of the liver, ascites, etc.

2. Antitumor effect

The extract from the tinder fungus is effective in mice in the treatment of transplantable tumors: U14, Ehrlich's ascitic tumor, sarcoma 180, Lewis lung carcinoma. The joint use of tinder branched extract with chemotherapeutic drugs does not interfere with their therapeutic effectiveness.

3. Impact on immunity

Polyosis tinder fungus is a good immunoregulator. It stimulates the function of macrophagocytes of the reticular endothelium and lymphatic cells ANAE (early progenitors of B cells) in mice, affects the proliferation of immunocompetent cells.

4. Hepatoprotective action

The tinder fungus affects the metabolism of sugar in the liver of animals with cancer or hepatitis.

5. Anti-radiation action

Poliosis of polypore branching is effective for the prevention and treatment of acute radiation sickness in mice.

Bibliography

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