Phlebia uda KOH test

I went back to Fox Covert and retrieved a section of the branch with suspected Phlebia uda fruiting bodies on it from last week.

I applied 4% KOH to the crust surface after a few hours drying of the branch (will return it to the woods tomorrow). Label 1 is the area of crust surface where the chemical was applied, it fairly rapidly turned dark (little bit purple) brown, and the "teeth" appeared to collapse. Label 2 was a couple of adjacent areas where the chemical soon appeared to produce a sort of cherry colour, still apparently dry and without any tooth collapse. It wasn't the completely iconic purple on h ttps://www.crustfungi.com/html/species/mycoacia-uda.html

Area 3 is one area of unaffected dry spiny crust for comparison. So that seems to fit with expectations? Oddly, rubbing the crust surface with a (sweaty) finger seemed to produce a similar cherry colour, quite quickly, which I haven't heard of before.

I shall have to do some microscopy!