alder-bracket-eating-and-leaking

Artist's Bracket

Ganoderma applanatum

(but also Artist's Fungus, Artist's Conk, Bear Bread, and, in Japan, the powder-covered monkey's bench)

Kingdom: Fungi
Family: Ganodermataceae
IUCN Status: Unlisted (2025)
Edibility: Inedible



At a glance

Common name Artist's Bracket
Scientific name Inonotus radiatus (also accepted as Mensularia radiata or Xanthoporia radiata)
AKA Artist's Fungus, Artist's Conk, Bear Bread, Kofuki-saru-no-koshikake (JP)
Season (UK) Perennial (present year-round; but spores most visible in summer)
Habitat Broadleaf woodland, parkland, riverine woodland; on living, dead, or fallen broadleaf trees and stumps
Bracket size 3cm and 75cm wide; typically between 5cm and 50cm
Spore print Brown (produced in enormous quantities, like, literal billions per day)
Edibility Inedible. Tough, woody, indigestible
Rarity Common and widespread

The Ganoderma genus contains some of the world's most studied medicinal fungi (the glossy, varnished Reishi - Ganoderma lucidum - being the most famous of them). The artist's bracket shares the genus name, but not the shininess. Ganoderma, from the Greek “ganos” (brightness) and “derma” (skin), is a more accurate description of its relatives than of this bracket. It is, to be clear, not shiny. Not even a bit. Well, maybe after it rains a bit? It is mostly a matte brown shelf attached to a tree. The name is doing its best.

Overview

The Artist's Bracket is a fungus that makes non-mycologists stop walking. Not because it's beautiful, exactly, but because it looks a little like someone frisbied a tortoise into the side of a tree and it left it there. It's also big, permanent, and doing something to that tree that deserves your attention. Ganoderma applanatum is parasitic and saprophytic, growing as a mycelium within the wood of living and dead trees. It doesn't visit. It moves in.

A common sight in broadleaf woodlands across the UK, all year-round, the artist's bracket is one of those fungi you'll clock once and then notice everywhere. It is, however, not going to end up on a tshirt or hat any time soon (the silhouette is, diplomatically, a challenge) but it is, without question, one of the most interesting things you’ll find bolted to a beech tree on a wet Tuesday in November.

Identification

The fruiting bodies are between 3cm and 30cm wide, between 5cm and 50 cm long and 1cm to 10cm thick, they’re as hard as leather and woody-textured. Exceptionally large specimens can reach 75cm across, at which point "bracket" starts to feel like an understatement - possibly "dining table" would be more appropriate. The upper surface is light chocolate brown, ribbed on younger specimens; the cuticle is consistently under 1mm in thickness, and can be broken with a thumb.

The underside is where the Artist's Bracket distinguishes itself: it’s a creamy white and scratchable. Run a sharp point across it and you'll leave an immediate, permanent brown mark. This is entirely the reason for the common name (we thought it was because it looked a bit like a table, which, in fairness, seems daft in retrospect).

Young fruiting bodies begin as white masses before developing their characteristic brown upper crust over time. The fruiting bodies are perennial, meaning they persist for multiple years, and add new layers of pores as they grow. These layers can be distinguished in cross-section, meaning you can find out the age of this mushroom in exactly the same way as counting tree rings. Cut one open and you're looking at a biological clock. Doesn’t work on people.

The spore production is absurd. As many as 4.65 billion spores can be dispersed from a 10×10 cm section within 24 hours. Which is a number that doesn't entirely make sense. Seems excessive really. However, you’ll generally notice a fine brown dust coating everything immediately below a large specimen - that's the Artist's Bracket. Messy bugger.

Lookalikes & ‘Mix-Up’ Species

Southern Bracket (Ganoderma australe) - actually more common in the UK than the artist’s bracket and (at least to the naked eye) extremely similar. These two species cannot be told apart without examination of spores using a microscope. So, you’ve got no chance - in which case, you can tick off whichever you’re missing off your list, and then live in blissful ignorance.

There is one field-confirmable tell, but it’s not the easiest for the untrained eye: if you see a non-laccate (not shiny - there’s one you can use for the purposes of easy to get away with passive aggression: ‘lovely car, very non-laccate’) Ganoderma with distinctive galls (mostly on its pore surface), you can be confident you've found an artist's bracket. 

The Yellow Flat-Footed Fly (Agathomyia wankowiczii - no comment) is the only insect in the UK capable of causing galls on a fungus, and lays its eggs exclusively in artist's brackets. No galls? Probably a Southern Bracket, but you'd need to be carrying your pocket-microscope to be certain.

Edibility

Not edible. This is a fungus that causes trees to rot and stubbornly sits there until they do; it is not going to deliver culinary delights. It is extremely tough and woody (you are what you eat, we suppose), non-digestible in its raw form, and no amount of enthusiasm is going to change that. 

It can technically be used in teas or dried and powdered as a flavour note in the manner of some Asian traditions, but that is a significant amount of effort.

Artist’s brackets and gorillas

In her book Gorillas in the Mist (1983), Dian Fossey wrote that the Artist's Bracket was a "special food" for gorillas, with younger animals often wrapping their arms and legs around a trunk to contentedly gnaw at it. Older animals who succeeded in breaking off a piece were observed carrying it several hundred feet, guarding it possessively. Like pretty much anything, if the silverbacks want it, they can have it. Including the car. 

The artist's bracket is not toxic, it’s simply inedible. There are no safety concerns around handling it, but you still shouldn’t eat it. Not because it will harm you, but because it is essentially wood and you will not enjoy it, you may even end up with fewer teeth than you started with. The Southern Bracket (Ganoderma australe) is equally inedible. Neither species requires caution in the field beyond the general rule of not eating wood and woody things.

Naming history

The name refers to the underside: the creamy white pore surface can be scratched with a sharp point to leave permanent brown marks, producing artistic images. The bracket is the canvas. People have been using it as a drawing medium for as long as people have been noticing it on trees, and there is an entire quiet tradition of detailed artwork etched into dried specimens. The name is not about what it looks like, but about what you can do with it - not, as we thought, because it looked like a desk. It doesn’t even really look like a desk.

Taxonomically, the story moves at the usual measured pace. The species was first described in 1800 by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon, who named it Boletus applanatus (essentially a ‘flattened’ bolet). In 1887, the French mycologist Narcisse Théophile Patouillard transferred it to the genus Ganoderma, establishing the currently accepted name Ganoderma applanatum. The genus name comes from the Greek ganos (brightness or shining) and derma (skin), something that makes considerably more sense applied to the lacquered appearance of the reishi than to a thoroughly matte brown bracket. The species epithet applanatum is from the Latin for "flattened" or "levelled," referring to the typical shelf form. Flat thing. Fair enough.

The genus Ganoderma was traditionally divided into two informal sections: Ganoderma (shiny cap) and Elfvingia (dull cap). The artist's bracket sat firmly in Elfvingia, for the obvious reason that it is not shiny. The synonyms accumulated over the following century accordingly: Fomes applanatus, Elfvingia applanata, Polyporus applanatus — each reflecting a different era's best attempt at organising what is, taxonomically speaking, a genuinely difficult group. Nineteen-century mycologists had opinions and the publication record to back them up.

In Japan the fungus is known as kofuki-saru-no-koshikake, which translates literally as "powder-covered monkey's bench." This is both more evocative and more accurate than ‘artist's bracket’, and makes it apparent that we have been historically short-changed in both taxonomy and monkeys.

Where to find it in the UK

Widespread, and common throughout Britain and Ireland, G. applanatum is found across most of mainland Europe and is most common in central and northern Europe. In the UK, you can look for it on broadleaf trees in deciduous and mixed woodlands (beech, oak, elm, ash, birch, horse chestnut, that kind of thing), particularly on older, stressed, or dying specimens, and on fallen logs and stumps. This bracket grows singly, or in tiers, fruiting from structural roots up to the lower crown on dysfunctional areas.

Reliable hunting grounds include:

Ancient woodland sites across the South East, such as the Chilterns, and New Forest (but anywhere with mature beech)

Parkland with veteran trees, such as estate woodland, deer parks, and National Trust land with old-growth specimens

Riverine woodland with mature alder and willow; essentially damp, shaded conditions suit it well, so look there

Any broadleaf woodland in Wales or Scotland with old, unhealthy, or recently fallen trees

It is perennial and visible year-round, making it one of the more reliable fungi to go looking for regardless of season. It will also not disappear between visits. If you find a good specimen on a beech tree in October, it will still be there in February. Possibly larger. That is not a reassuring thing for the tree.

Worth knowing

As a way of getting people (especially children or disinterested, long suffering partners) engaging with fungi in the field, the artist's bracket may be the most practically useful species in the UK. You can draw on it. It's right there on the side of a tree. It's enormous and pretty much permanent. Children immediately understand what to do with it in a way they don't always understand what to do with, say, a Shaggy Inkcap. The bracket is also the activity.

G. applanatum can also be used to produce amadou — the leathery, tinder-like material usually associated with hoof fungus (Fomes fomentarius). It is not the species most people reach for when starting a fire, but it is worth knowing the option exists.

The t-shirt verdict: not this one. The silhouette is a lumpy brown shelf and even we, who have put a mushroom on everything, cannot make that work embroidered on organic cotton. But. Find one on a walk, scratch your initials into the underside, leave it for the next person. That is, quietly, what this fungus is for.

Sources: Wild Food UK, The Wildlife Trusts,  First Nature,  Woodland Trust, NatureSpot, Ultimate Mushroom Guide

This article is for informational purposes only. Never consume any wild fungus without a confirmed identification from a qualified expert. The artist's bracket is inedible, but not toxic. If you are using this page to learn about fungi rather than to eat them, we encourage you warmly to go find it. If you are using it as foraging guidance alone, please also consult an expert. Nothing here constitutes medical, dietary, or professional advice. Except, possibly, the bit about not eating wood. But then, isn’t aspirin made of wood? We know effectively nothing.