Horse hoofef Fungi- Trail Wood

Trail Wood #65 Earl Plato

Connecticut naturalist, the late Edwin Way Teale, was a great observer of life. That early April day he shares with us about fungi. The late Fort Erie naturalist Albert Miller did the same with me as a youth. I have never forgotten his little demonstration that day.
“Each time I come this way I notice on a dozen or more of the birch trees the flat-bottomed, hoof-shaped shelves of the fungus Poltporus betulimus. They grow on both dead and living trees. Deer eat them when they are young. In early times pioneers gathered them for fuel. When dry they burn with a white flame and hold ire like punk.”
Writer’s note: Late Fort Erie naturalist, Bert Miller, took his pen knife out and scraped material from a horse’s hoof fungus. He took a match and lit he material. As Ed Teale wrote it will
“Hold fire like punk.” I was a youth then. Bert added, “It’s like a punk stick you use to set off fireworks.”
Teale continued, “The upper surface of each is smooth, tough, corky. The lower surface is riddled with a maze of small holes. Each is the opening of a tube in which spores mature.”