Sarcodon imbricatus
| Sarcodon imbricatus | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Basidiomycota |
| Class: | Agaricomycetes |
| Order: | Thelephorales |
| Family: | Bankeraceae |
| Genus: | Sarcodon |
| Species: | S. imbricatus |
| Binomial name | |
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Sarcodon imbricatus (L.) P.Karst. (1881) |
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| Synonyms | |
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| Sarcodon imbricatus | |
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| Mycological characteristics | |
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teeth on hymenium |
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cap is flat |
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hymenium is adnate |
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stipe is bare |
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spore print is brown |
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ecology is mycorrhizal |
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edibility: edible |
Sarcodon imbricatus, commonly known as the shingled hedgehog or scaly hedgehog, is a species of tooth fungus in the order Thelephorales. The mushroom is edible. Many sources report it has a bitter taste, but others have found it delicious and suspect that the bitter specimens may be similar related species. The mushroom has a large, brownish cap with large brown scales and may reach 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. On the underside it sports greyish, brittle teeth instead of gills, and has white flesh. Its spore print is brown. It is associated with spruce (Picea), appearing in autumn. It ranges throughout North America and Europe, although collections from the British Isles are now assigned to the similar species Sarcodon squamosus.
The Swedish botanist Olof Celsius reported in 1732 that Sarcodon imbricatus occurred in the vicinity of Uppsala, and Carl Linnaeus wrote of it in his 1737 work Flora lapponica. It was one of the species initially described by Linnaeus, as Hydnum imbricatum, in the second volume of his Species Plantarum in 1753. The specific epithet is the Latin imbricatus meaning "tiled" or "with overlapping tiles". It was then placed in the genus Sarcodon by Finnish mycologist Petter Adolf Karsten in 1881. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek stems sarco- 'flesh' and odon 'tooth'.
For many years, Sarcodon imbricatus was described associated with both spruce and pine, although the latter forms were smaller and noted to be more palatable by mushroom hunters in Norway. Furthermore, the mushroom has been used as a source of pigment and collectors noted that fresh specimens collected under pine yielded pigment, but only old ones collected under spruce. Molecular analysis of the DNA revealed the two forms to be distinct genetically, and thus populations of what had been described as S. imbricatus were now assigned to Sarcodon squamosus, which includes collections in the British Isles and the Netherlands.
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Wikipedia