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Cushion Bracket
Inedible 
Autumn 
Spring 
Summer 
Winter 
A perennial polypore which looks like a ‘lump of mud’ on any woody members of the Rosaceae family, but mostly on Wild Cherry and Blackthorn.
| Mushroom Type | |
| Common Names | Cushion Bracket, Ysgwydd Glustogaidd (CY), Czyreń Śliwowy (PL), Szilva-tapló (HU) |
| Scientific Name | Phellinus tuberculosus |
| Synonyms | Phellinus pomaceus |
| Season Start | All Year |
| Season End | All Year |
| Average Mushroom height (CM) | 5–6 cm |
| Average Cap width (CM) | 3–10 cm |
Fruiting Body
Perennial. 3–10 cm across, broadly attached to the substrate without having a stem (sessile). Semi-pileate, cushion or hoof shaped, looks like a scone in section. Growing solitary or a few fruit bodies can overlap each other (imbricate). Its upper (sterile) surface is velutinous, slightly tomentose at first, later becomes smooth, glabrous and often cracked. It is brown, greyish brown to blackish, often covered with algae. Margin obtuse, rounded, pale brown to cinnamon brown.
Pores
Tubes are layered annually (stratified), 2–3 mm long per layer, concolorous with the flesh. Pores 7–8 per mm, round to angular; brown, tobacco brown, dark yellowish brown (cinnamon brown), or sometimes greyish brown.
Flesh
1–1.5 cm thick, hard as a wood, yellowish brown, rusty brown to reddish brown.
Habitat
On living or dead trunks and fallen branches of woody members of Rosaceae family, such as Wild Cherry, Blackthorn, Damson, and rarely on Hawthorn. Necrotrophic parasite, causes white-rot of the heartwood.
Possible Confusion
It is rather hard to confuse it with anything, but almost every Phellinus s.l. species starts as a ‘lump of mud’ and develops into the shape of the fruit body later.
Taste / Smell
Inedible, smell and taste indistinctive.
Frequency
Occasional and widespread in England and Northern Ireland, much less often reported from Scotland and Wales.
Spores
Spore print is white. Spores are smooth, thin walled, broadly ellipsoid to ovoid, colourless (hyaline) and inamyloid (not staining in iodine reagents, such as Melzer’s reagent and Lugol’s solution).
Other Facts
Despite it is a necrotrophic parasite, it is not an aggressive rotter. It will kills the tree eventually, but it will take many years. At the beginning the tree might still produce fruits, but the end of fruit production is unavoidable.
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