Phylum：Basidiomycota　>>　Class： Basidiomycetes　>>　 Order： Polyporales 
   
 
　BCRC Number： NO BCRC Number!  
   
　Scientific Name： Tomophagus colossus
 
   
   
　Author：

Tomophagus colossus (Fr.) Murr., Torreya 5: 197. 1905..

Basionym: Polyporus colossus Fr., Nova Acta Soc. Sci. Upsal. III 1: 56. 1851..
   
 
 
 
 
　Description： Basidiocarp pileate, sessile, fairly loose and soft in consistency, light-weighted. Pileus irregularly semicircular, slightly ungulate, 65 cm wide, growth length up to 25 cm, up to 7 cm thick. Upper surface glabrous, ivory-yellow or yellowish brown, slightly laccate, irregularly swollen, irregularly sulcate; margin obtuse, ± undulate. Context soft and punky, easily crumbled, up to 5 cm thick, ivory-colored. Tube layer up to 2 cm thick, dark ivory-colored. Pileus crust ca. 0.3 mm thick, occasionally separable from the context, composed of yellow, swollen skeletal hyphal ends. Pore surface ochraceous after storage; pores suborbicular, ca. 4 per mm. Context hyphal system trimitic; generative hyphae rare, colorless, nodose-septate, 3-4 μm diam., thin-walled; skeletal hyphae dominant, colorless or pale yellow, thick-walled to solid, rarely branched, 2.5-6 μm diam.; binding hyphae rare, colorless, thick-walled, branched, 1-2 μm diam. Basidia not seen. Basidiospores ellipsoid or broadly ellipsoid, truncate at apex, usually containing one big oily drop, 15-19 × 10-12 μm; exospore thin, colorless; endospore thick, yellowish brown, separated from exospore by poroid-reticulate surface.
 
 
 
 
 
　Specimens：

Taiwan. Miaoli: Chunan, in tomb, on rotten coffin made of Cunninghamia lanceolata, Jul 1983, Wu 83-1 (TNM).
 
 
 
　Habitat： null
 
 
 
　Distribution：

Africa, South Asia, Australia, South and Central America, USA (Florida).
 
 
 
　References：

Wu, SH. & Zang XQ. 2003.
   
   
   
　Provided：

S. H. Wu
 
 
　Note： Tomophagus colossus is a pantropical – subtropical species. This species is easily identifiable by its large, light-weighted and soft basidiocarp, which is paler in color than most other species of the Ganodermataceae. It was the reason that Murrill (1905) created new genus Tomophagus for this species, separating it from Ganoderma. Recognition of the genus Tomophagus based merely on distinctive macroscopic features, was not accepted by most mycologists (Steyaert, 1972; Ryvarden, 1991). Molecular evidence by Moncalvo et al. (1995) shows that Ganoderma is monophyletic only if T. colossus is excluded from this genus. It is noted that the endospore surface of the basidiospores of T. colossus is poroid or reticulate, not aculeate or verrucose as in basidiospores of Ganoderma species. Evidence of this distinctive microscopic feature strongly supports the separation of Tomophagus from Ganoderma.