Dryad's Saddle

Cerioporus squamosus

Also known as Pheasant's Back Mushroom.

Dan Molter / CC BY-SA 3.0

About this fungus

Dryad's Saddle is listed in the Shroomify field guide as a brackets & crusts fungus in the Polyporaceae family. On wounded living hardwoods and dead hardwood trunks, stumps and logs.

A note on identification
This profile is a guide rather than a guarantee. If you are considering eating a wild mushroom, check the whole specimen and its possible lookalikes carefully. Do not eat it if you are unsure of the identification.

Photographs

What the records suggest about Dryad's Saddle

The project has analysed over a million matched fungal events from Europe and North America alongside weather and habitat data. The patterns may be useful wherever the same fungus occurs, but local climate, trees and soils can change the response. Ground preferences are drawn from British bedrock records and may need local confirmation elsewhere.

Ground and bedrock

This fungus tends to favour lime-rich ground, including places shaped by chalk or limestone.

Elevation

Records tended to come from lower ground, about 146 metres below the average elevation of fungal records in the study.

Weather or season?

The normal seasonal pattern is the more useful guide here. No short-term weather effect passed the project’s checks for a clear, repeatable link.