urbpan | 365 Urban Species. #076: Turkey Tail (Reply)

Urban species #076: Turkey Tail Trametes versicolor

While split gill may have a claim on being the most widespread mushroom on earth, I'd lay money that turkey tail is the mushroom that more people have encountered. Any stump in the city, suburbs or elsewhere is likely to sprout them. This wood-digesting fungus is not especially particular to what species of tree the wood is from, and can appear almost any time of year, as long as it's above freezing. When the mushrooms do appear, there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of individual caps. At first they are chocolate brown with a white margin, but as they age they develop their characteristic bands of different colors. Different individual Trametes versicolor fungi will produce mushrooms with different colors, depending on it's genetics and environment. Older turkey tails in wet places are often colonized by green algae.

The leathery turkey tail mushrooms persist more or less year-round. They are thin, so they do tend to be worn and damaged from footsteps and other injuries when older. False turkey-tail is a look-alike covered here earlier, but is noticeably more orange, at least when fresh.