These mushrooms have been in the news lately due to the Covid-19 pandemic’s creation of a heightened interest in the human immune system. They’re Turkey Tail mushrooms (Trametes versicolor), named for their shape and color patterns.
Turkey Tails have been used for centuries as medicinal mushrooms and lately have been associated with alleged significant benefits that protect and improve human immune systems.
Their real job in life is to get rid of dead trees in the woods cell by cell, a job that needs nature’s almost infinite patience. A look-alike is the Violet-Tooth Polypores (Trichaptum sp.), this one most likely Trichaptum abietinum:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 11 and 16, 2021.)