Cryptic Globe Fungus

Cryptoporus volvatus (Peck) Shear, Bull. Torrey
Club 29: 450. 1902.
Polyporus volvatus Pegk, Ann. Rep. N. Y. State Mus. 27 : 98. 1877. Polyporus ohvolulus Berk. & Cooke, Grevillea 7 : 1. 1878. (Type from California.) Polyporus injlatus Ellis & Martindale, Am. Nat. 18 : 722. 1884. (Type from Oregon.) Polyporus volvatus Helix P_Henn. Hedwigia 37 : 273. 1898. (Type from California.)
Pileus simple, sessile, rarely spuriously stipitate, globose to ungulate, 2-6 cm. broad, 1.5-3 cm. thick; surface white, sometimes slightly reddish-brown, smooth, slightly viscid or resinous when young, glabrous, marked with anastomosing depressed lines in larger specimens; margin very rounded, concolorous, smooth, produced into a volva covering the tubes, at length rupturing at 1-3 points forming small rounded or irregular apertures : context soft-corky, homogeneous, white, 2-5 mm. thick; tubes 1-1.5 mm. long, isabelline to umbrinous, mouths' angular, yellow with a tinge of cinnamon, 3 to a mnv., edges thick, becoming thin, entire: spores oblong, smooth, hyaline or pale flesh-colored, 11-13 X 4-5^.
Type locality: New York, on Abies nigra. Habitat : On dead coniferous wood.
Distribution : Canada to Virginia and west to British Columbia and California ■ also in Tanan

Cryptoporus volvatus is a polypore fungus that decomposes the rotting sapwood of conifers. It is an after effect of attack by the pine bark beetle. The fungus was originally described by American mycologist Charles Horton Peck in 1875 as Polyporus volvatus. Cornelius Lott Shear transferred it to the genus Cryptoporus in 1902. The species is inedible.

The fruiting body is 2–6 across, and cream or tan in color. A hole is either torn by insects or a tear appears on the underside. The spores are pinkish.