The Urban Pantheist

Bondarzewia berkeleyi* is a mushroom so big that photographers traditionally place hats on it for scale. The greater part of the fungus is hard at work digesting "moist, poorly protected undersurface of tree trunk's thickest part" causing a disease called "butt rot," undoubtedly named by 12 year old with a forestry degree. Despite looking for all the world like a polypore mushroom, "Big Berk" is more closely related to Russula producing fungi. Future mushroom field guides are going to have to make a choice between grouping together species that look alike or species that are actually closely related.

* Bondarzewia is named for A.S. Bondarzew; berkeleyi is named for British mycologist M. J. Berkeley (1803-1889).