Mushroom of the Month: Dryad's Saddle

The Dryad's Saddle (Polyporus squamosus) is a bracket fungus that is widely distributed in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. This fungus is a fan of both live and dead hardwoods on which it causes white rot disease.

Polyporus squamosus

We will turn again to mushroomexpert to run down a key.
1. Mushroom growing on other mushrooms or the decayed remains of other mushrooms. Mycotrophs
1. Mushroom not growing on other mushrooms. 2

2. Mushroom with gills or pores on its underside. 3
2. Gills and pores absent.

3. Growing shelflike on wood (or, if not, then gills concentric rather than radial); mushroom very tough and leathery, corky, or woody (try tearing it in half); gills or pores tough and hard; cap frequently (but not always) with concentric zones of color.   4 Polypores
3. Not completely as above.

4. Stem present (central or lateral).5
4. Stem absent. [To be developed.]

5. Flesh pale (white, pale pinkish, etc.) when young and fresh.    6 Stemmed, Pale-Fleshed Polyporus
5. Flesh darker than above when fresh and young. [To be developed.]

6. Growing above ground on the wood of trees, stumps, logs, branches, or sticks. 7
6. Growing at the very bases of trees or stumps--or growing terrestrially, from buried roots or without clear association with a tree.

7. Stem black or with a black base. 8
7. Neither stem nor stem base black. 

8. Cap with scales. 9
8. Cap without scales. 

9. Only rarely growing on wood; recorded only from California and the Southwest; scales raised, with sharp edges; stem with white hairs over the blackish portion; mushroom connected through the wood to a large underground mass of tissue (a "sclerotium"). Polyporus tuberaster
9. Always growing on wood; widely distributed but more common east of the Rocky Mountains; scales pressed down, with rounded edges; stem without white hairs; sclerotium absent.         Polyporus squamosus
For more information on this mushroom i present you with the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyporus_squamosus

Photo Cred: By Appaloosa (photographed by Appaloosa) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons