Forest Decomposers Up Close
Crimped gill is the common name for Plicaturopsis crispa, a small wood rotting fungus found year round in temperate regions. We came across this specimen yesterday while exploring some parts of the Fells with a lovely group of guests. Crimped gill typically grows in dense, overlapping shelves on dead branches and trunks of deciduous trees, often beech, birch, hazel, and alder. As a saprotrophic fungus, it feeds exclusively on dead wood, playing a quiet but essential role in forest recycling rather than harming living trees.
Its caps are tiny and fan shaped, with a finely velvety surface marked by pale concentric zones. The wavy, crimped edge gives the species its name. The underside appears strongly gilled, but these are actually wrinkled folds that carry the spores, which are white. Crimped gill causes white rot, breaking down lignin and cellulose and leaving wood pale and fibrous.
๐ท Crimped Gill · Plicature Crispรฉe (Plicatura crispa) © Claire O'Neill, please credit accordingly.
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