The crimped Gill, Plicatura crispa

A lovely spread of brackets by the side of MR 597, possibly on fallen Hazel, Corylus. The blue-grey tinges on the underside of the brackets are obvious from a distance. This species has exploded across the UK since the turn of the century, and no-one seems to know why.

Fruit bodies are generally 1-3 cm in length with bracket-like semi-circular shell shapes. Upper surface is normally concentrically zoned getting paler as it approaches the edge. Underside is made up of pale forked folds, giving a gill-like appearance. It produces white spores.

Plicatura crispa is an effective participant in the initial phase of decay, colonizing predominantly dead branches of deciduous trees (Fagus and Betula) and is associated with a white rot. A few years into the succession of wood decomposition, strong competitors such as Trametes versicolor and the split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune often displace Plicatura crispa.

It is the ridged margins, rather like the edge of a pie, that accounts for the species’ common name of the Crimped Gill, as well as the second part of its binomial: crispa is the Latin word for curly or crimped (there’s another fungus, the Wood Cauliflower, with the scientific name Sparassis crispa).