Trametes versicolour

A colourful bracket fungi with individual ‘fans’ up to 7-8cm across, forming flexible shelves on dead and living trees and logs on the ground.  The underside is a creamy layer of tiny pores – not gills like in mushrooms. Trametes versicolour usually fruits from autumn to late winter.

It is a very cosmopolitan fungus found in many countries world-wide. Usually, the bands are coloured yellow, brown and orange but sometimes blue and green forms are not uncommon.

Fungi are the decomposers in an ecosystem – they breakdown organic matter into various components, some of which are taken up by nearby plants as nutrient. Many plants have important symbiotic relationships with certain fungi. (Fungi are not plants, they have their own kingdom).