Tiered Tooth
Possibly the commonest species of the Europe-wide rare genus Hericium. Once you saw it, it is rather unmistakable. Despite it not being protected as a species, we recommend only collecting photos, not its fruit bodies!
Scientific Name – Hericium cirrhatum
Common Names:
Tiered Tooth, Pigau Haenog (CY), Kolczatek Strzępiasty (PL), Tüskés Sörénygomba (HU)
Please note that each and every mushroom you come across may vary in appearance to these photos.
Fruiting Body
The fruiting body could be up to 20 x 20 cm in diameter. It is formed of several, irregular, tiered and overlapping, individual shell or oyster-like lobes which are 3–8 cm in diameter. The upper (sterile) surface is uneven, granular or covered with fine scales, white to off-white, sometimes with a pinkish tinge. The fertile underneath is similar in colour to the cap, and covered in off-white to white, hanging spines or ‘teeth’, which makes the whole fruit body white when young, off-white to yellow with age.
Spines
Up to 1–1.5 cm long, pale, off-white to white, yellowing with age.
Flesh
2–3 cm thick, white to cream. Soft and spongy at first, becoming tougher with age.
Habitat
Saprotrophic on dead or dying hardwoods, most of all Beech, although rarely it can be found on other deciduous trees, such as Birch. Some authors list it is as a weakly parasitic species, while others consider it as a necrotrophic parasite. Mostly grows individually on logs or stumps, but – according to the First Nature website – it is ‘rarely appearing in the same place for more than a year or two‘. It causes white-rot.
Possible Confusion
It is a very distinctive species, hard to confuse with anything else.
Other Facts
When young and fresh Hericium fungi are generally considered to be choice edibles with a fine flavour and texture similar to fish or tender meat. In Britain it is illegal to gather this very rare species, which has legal protection under Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which precludes picking and destruction of the fruitbodies.
