Polyporaceae

Polyporaceae 

a group of fungus families. The fruiting bodies have fleshy, leathery, or woody tissue, and the hymenophores are cleft-dentate, labyrinthine, or lamellate. The fungi live almost exclusively on wood. The fruiting bodies are procumbent (reaching 1 m in length), procumbent-recurved, or sessile (0.5–70 cm in diameter); they are sometimes differentiated into a cap and a stalk. The mycelium is perennial, and the fruiting bodies live anywhere from two weeks to 25 years. Perennial fruiting bodies often have a stratified hymenophore. The fungi reproduce by means of two basidiospores that develop exogenously on four-spored or, rarely, two-spored basidia. Spores are formed during the entire vegetative period, with several interruptions. A conidial sporebearer occurs extremely rarely.

Polyporaceae attack living trees, producing root rots (causative agent—Fomitopsis annosa) and trunk rots (causative agents Phellinus pini, P. igniarius, and P. tremulae). They also develop on felled trees and lumber (Fomes fomentarius, Ganoderma applanatum, Fomitopsis pinicola, and Fibuloporia vaillantii). Of the 1,200 known species of Polyporaceae, about 350 occur in the USSR.

M. A. BONDARTSEVA