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Lacquered Bracket
Inedible 
Autumn 
Spring 
Summer 
Winter 
A beautiful annual polypore with the colour of a medieval wax-stamp. It often emerges from the base of a broadleaf tree looking like a small cobra. It means no harm to us, while its presence is always bad news for its host because it is one of the necrotrophic parasites.
| Mushroom Type | |
| Common Names | Lacquered Bracket (EN), Reishi, Ysgwydd Gloyw (CY), Lakownica Żółtawa (PL), Pecsétviaszgomba (HU) |
| Scientific Name | Ganoderma lucidum |
| Synonyms | Ganoderma laccatum, Ganoderma japonicum, Fomes lucidus, Polyporus lucidus, Grifola lucida |
| Season Start | All Year |
| Season End | All Year |
| Average Mushroom height (CM) | 8–12 |
| Average Cap width (CM) | 5–15 |
Cap
5–15cm across, semicircular to fan or kidney shaped. Skin (sterile upper surface) is concentrically zoned, covered with a non-resinous varnished layer. Younger layers are yellow, mature layers are normally deep, darker red to reddish brown. The margin is thick, wavy and as long the cap is in active growth, it is white (later yellow then concolorous with the other parts of the cap).
Pores
Tubes up to 5–20 mm long, brown. Pores 4–5 per mm, roundish, white.
Stem
8–12cm tall, 2–3cm wide, rarely could have an even a longer stem. Usually eccentrically attached to the cap, but the stem could be in central position as well. Warty, irregularly cylindrical (mostly widens at the apex); concolorous with the cap. It is also possible that the fruit body grows/develops without having/forming a stem (sessile) although this is rare.
Flesh
Weakly zonate, creamy to light brownish at first, darker with age, corky.
Habitat
Grows mostly individually, rarely in smaller groups (a few individual fruitbody can grow out from the same host) on various hardwoods. In the UK the most common hosts are Oaks and Maples. As a necrotrophic parasite, it (slowly) kills its host first, then it will continue to live on the dead wood as a saprotrophic species, an in this stage it causes white-rot.
Possible Confusion
In Europe there are only a few lookalikes of Ganoderma lucidum.
Most of all Ganoderma resinaceum, which still doesn’t have a common English name (according to the latest, 2022 edition of the English names for Fungi by the British Mycological Society). It is a perennial, large bracket, growing on various hardwoods (preferably Willows and Oaks), mostly without forming a stem, but if it grows directly from the roots of a tree, it might have a stem.
Ganoderma carnosum, its main host is Silver Fir (Abies alba), but more rarely it can be found on/around other conifers too.
Spore Print
Spore print is rusty brown. Spores are brown with a colourless (hyaline) germ-pore, elliptical to ovoid, covered with a few fine warts, inamyloid (which means the spore wall doesn’t contain starch).
Taste / Smell
Inedible (due to its corky texture). Taste and smell indistinctive.
Frequency
It is occasional to rare in the UK.
Other Facts
The scientific name of the species has mixed origin. The genus name ‘Ganoderma‘ is made of 2 different Greek words, ganos or γανος means ‘brightness’, derma or δερμα means ‘skin’, so altogether means ‘shiny or bright skin’, while the epithet (2nd part of the scientific name) ‘lucidum‘ comes from the Latin word ‘lucidus‘ which means bright, shiny, etc.
Ganoderma lucidum was first described by William Curtis, a British mycologist in Flora Londinensis in 1781 as Boletus lucidus.
Until recently we thought that Ganoderma lucidum is the same species as the Reishi, the highly praised medicinal mushroom from Asia, but we were wrong. Our Ganoderma lucidum is a European species, not native to Asia. The legendary Reishi or Lingzhi (Ganoderma sichuanense, syn: Ganoderma lingzhi) is a similar looking, but completely different species (they aren’t even in the same clade within the genus). However, because of the huge amount of money being invested to promote the health benefits of Reishi, this well-known scientific fact won’t reach the marketing department/team of food supplement manufacturers for a long time…
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