Ruddy Panus

Panus neostrigosus, long known as Panus rudis and also treated as Panus lecomtei, is a small, leathery, wood-inhabiting agaric of the Polyporaceae, the family that contains the true polypores. Like its relatives it has tough, elastic flesh, and it revives after drying, so fruit bodies persist for weeks and are frequently found in a shrivelled state that plumps up again after rain.

The combination of a densely hairy cap and violet or lilac-tinted young gills is diagnostic. Fresh fruit bodies are surprisingly colourful, with a pinkish-tan to rusty-brown hairy cap and gills washed with purple, but both fade rapidly to dull buff and tan, so old collections look quite different from young ones. The stem is short, tough and set to one side, and the flesh is too firm to tear cleanly.

The species is an early coloniser of freshly exposed hardwood, appearing on stumps within months of felling and on trunks scorched by fire. That opportunistic habit, combined with a wide climatic tolerance, makes it one of the more frequently encountered small wood-rotters across temperate and subtropical regions.

Cap

2-10 cm across, at first convex with an inrolled edge, soon becoming shallowly funnel-shaped, vase-like or fan-shaped when growing sideways from a stump. The whole upper surface is densely covered in stiff, coarse hairs, giving a bristly or shaggy texture. Colour is pinkish-tan, cinnamon, rusty or reddish-brown when fresh, fading to dull tan, buff or greyish with age and weathering. The margin is usually inrolled for a long time and often wavy.

Gills

Crowded, narrow, and distinctly decurrent, running well down the stem. Fresh young gills are washed with pale violet, lilac or pinkish tones, an excellent character that is lost within days; mature gills are cream to pale tan or pinkish-buff. The edges are even, not toothed.

Stipe

Short and stout, 0.5-3 cm long, lateral to eccentric or occasionally nearly central, tough and solid, and covered with the same coarse hairs as the cap. It is often curved and darkens toward the base.

Flesh and spore print

The flesh is white, thin, very tough and leathery, and does not change colour when cut. Fruit bodies dry hard and revive on wetting. The spore print is white; spores are smooth and ellipsoid.

Panus neostrigosus grows on dead hardwood: stumps, fallen logs, large branches and the cut ends of felled timber. It has a marked preference for recently killed or damaged wood, so it is common on fresh stumps, storm-broken trunks and wood scorched by fire, and it also appears on old railway sleepers and landscape timbers made from hardwood. Oak, maple, beech, birch and many other broadleaved trees serve as substrates.

Fruit bodies appear from late spring through autumn, with peaks after warm rain, and single clusters can persist in a dried state for months. The species is widespread in temperate and subtropical North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia, and is often one of the first conspicuous fungi to colonise a newly created stump in woodland clearings, parks and gardens.

This is a saprotrophic white-rot fungus. Its mycelium breaks down lignin along with cellulose, and colonised wood becomes pale, soft and stringy. As a pioneer of freshly exposed hardwood, it establishes quickly on cut and burned surfaces, competing with other early colonisers before the slower, longer-lived heart-rot fungi arrive.

Its leathery, revivable fruit bodies represent a different strategy from the fleshy agarics: rather than producing a short-lived cap that must complete spore release in a few days, Panus builds a durable structure that can shed spores intermittently over a long period whenever moisture returns. That resilience suits the exposed, sun-baked stumps and clearings where the species is most at home.

Panus conchatus is the nearest relative and shares the violet-tinged young gills, but its cap is smooth to finely velvety rather than coarsely hairy, and it is usually larger with stronger lilac to purplish colours overall. Lentinus and Neolentinus species have scaly rather than hairy caps and gills with coarsely toothed edges.

Lentinellus ursinus grows on similar logs and is hairy near its attachment, but it is stemless and its gill edges are strongly saw-toothed. Crepidotus species are soft, pale and thin-fleshed, with a brown spore print. Young Trametes and other small brackets can be similarly hairy above but have pores rather than gills beneath.