Pileus/Cap: Grows closely up to 30cm across the surface. It usually exhibits a irregular shape, but has a very wide variety of shapes like tongue shape or fan shaped.Some of them show multiple caps. The surface of the mushroom is smooth and at times velvety. It has a lobed margin and colour varies from red to reddish-orange or even liver coloured.
Pore Surface:Pore surface is white or pale pink initially but becoming reddish brown as it ages. The tubes are distinct and separate. The tubes are pale red in colour 1-1.5cm long and 2-3 per mm.
Spore Print: Pink to Pinkish Brown.
Microscopic Features: Spores 3.5-6 × 2.5-4µm.
Flesh: The flesh looks like beef or liver. It exudes a blood-red liquid, the fungus smells pleasent.
Type of Rot: It causes brown heart rot in oaks and chestnuts.
Fistulina Hepatica has been found in a very wide Geographical scale from Europe to Australia to North America.
Fistulina Hepatica is a saprophytic fungus and at times parasitic on hardwood trees like Oaks and Chestnuts.
F. hepatica is a very remarkable fungus which has striking looks like a fresh slab or meat and also oozes out a liquid similar to blood when cut or sliced open.
The young ones are very distinctive and do not become tough like other polypores or bracket fungi.
F. hepatica is rarely or rather never confused with any other owing to it striking and remarkable appearance and characteristics.
This fungus is a popular edible mushroom and is said to taste very much like Red Meat and thus the name. Though many argue that the taste is sour, it still remains a popular edible fungus. It is one of only a handful of wilod mushrooms that can be eaten raw withoutmuch worry.
Before the chestnut blight wiped out most of the chestnut trees in eastern North American forests, this fungus was much more common. The fungus seems to require large chestnut trees in order to fruit.
Medicinal applications:
1)As an Antioxidizing agent:
F. hepatica is one of the very few mushrooms or the only mushroom that has been extensively investigated for its capacity to act as a free-radical scavenger or antioxidant(Ribeiro et al., 2007).
2)Antibacterial agent:
A set of Scientific studies and experiments by an Italian scientist, Coletto has divulged some astonishing results and data that F. hepatica possesses a very potent antibacterial activity against various pathogenic bacteria like Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis (Coletto 1981, 1987/88), and Klebsiella pneumoniae (Coletto, 1992).
There was another research that claimed that the antibacterial activity of some metabolites of F. hepatica were comparable to Cepahlosporin.
The wood that is infected by this fungus is highly coveted by many furniture and cabinet makers. They refer to the wood as “Brown oak” due to the rich colour that the fungus imparts to the heartwood. The colour is due to the strong carbonizing activity of the fungus. The wood is used to make high-end furniture and some architectural master pieces.
Fistulina hepatica (beefsteak fungus, also known as beefsteak polypore, poor man’s steak, ox tongue, or tongue mushroom) is an unusual bracket fungus classified in the Agaricales, that is commonly seen in Britain, but can be found in North America, Australia, North Africa, Southern Africa and the rest of Europe. As its name suggests, it looks remarkably similar to a slab of raw meat. It has been used as a meat substitute in the past, and can still be found in some French markets. It has a sour, slightly acidic taste. For eating it must be collected young and it may be tough and need long cooking.
The cap is 7–30 cm wide and 2–6 cm thick.[1] Is shape resembles a large tongue, and it is rough-surfaced with a reddish-brown colour. The spores are pink[1] and released from minute pores on the creamy-white underside of the fruit body. A younger Fistulina hepatica is a pinkish-red colour, and it darkens with age. It bleeds a dull red juice when cut, which can cause stains,[1] and the cut flesh further resembles meat.[2] It is sour in taste,[1] edible and considered choice by some,[3] although older specimens should be soaked overnight, as their juice can cause gastric upset.[4]
The underside of the fruiting body, from which the spores are ejected, is a mass of tubules. The genus name is a diminutive of the Latin word fistula and means "small tube", whilst the species name hepatica means "liver-like", referring to the consistency of the flesh.
The species is fairly common, and can often be found on oaks and sweet chestnut, from August to the end of autumn, on either living or dead wood. It has a tendency to impart a reddish-brown stain to the living wood of oaks, creating a desirable timber type. In Australia, it can be found growing from wounds on Eucalyptus trees. It causes a brown rot on the trees which it infects.[5]
Fistulina is classified in the family Fistulinaceae;[6] molecular studies suggest close relations to the agaric mushroom Schizophyllum in the Schizophyllaceae (in the schizophylloid clade), but in the separate sister fistulinoid clade.[7] Fistulina is a cyphelloid genus, meaning that it is closely related to gilled fungi, but its fertile surface consists of smooth cup-shaped elements instead of gills. The underside (the hymenium) is a mass of tubules which represent a "reduced" form of the ancestral gills.
Fistulina hepatica (beefsteak fungus, also known as beefsteak polypore, poor man’s steak, ox tongue, or tongue mushroom) is an unusual bracket fungus classified in the Agaricales, that is commonly seen in Britain, but can be found in North America, Australia, North Africa, Southern Africa and the rest of Europe. As its name suggests, it looks remarkably similar to a slab of raw meat. It has been used as a meat substitute in the past, and can still be found in some French markets. It has a sour, slightly acidic taste. For eating it must be collected young and it may be tough and need long cooking.
