Ganoderma applanatum (Artist's Bracket, Artist's Conch, or Flacher Lackporling; syn.

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...

 Boletus applanatus, Fomes applanatus, Fomes vegetus, Ganoderme aplani, Ganoderma lipsiense, Polyporus applanatus, and Polyporus vegetus) is a bracket fungus

Bracket fungus

Bracket fungi, or shelf fungi, among many groups of the fungi in the phylum Basidiomycota. Characteristically, they produce shelf- or bracket-shaped fruiting bodies called conks that lie in a close planar grouping of separate or interconnected horizontal rows...

 with a cosmopolitan distribution

Cosmopolitan distribution

In biogeography, a taxon is said to have a cosmopolitan distribution if its range extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. For instance, the killer whale has a cosmopolitan distribution, extending over most of the world's oceans. Other examples include humans, the lichen...

.

The spore bodies are up to 30-40 cm across, hard, woody-textured, and inedible; they are white at first but soon turn dark red-brown.

It is a wood-decay fungus

Wood-decay fungus

A wood-decay fungus is a variety of fungus that digests moist wood, causing it to rot. Some wood-decay fungi attack dead wood, such as brown rot, and some, such as Armillaria , are parasitic and colonize living trees. Fungi that not only grow on wood but actually cause it to decay, are called...

, using primarily dead heartwood, but also as a pathogen

Pathogen

A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...

 on live sapwood

Sapwood

Sapwood may refer to:* Sapwood, the part of living wood where sap flows, as distinct from the heartwood, where it doesn't* SS-6 Sapwood, the NATO reporting name for the R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile...

, particularly on older trees. It is a common cause of decay and death of beech

Beech

Beech is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America.-Habit:...

 and poplar

Poplar

Populus is a genus of 25–35 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar , aspen, and cottonwood....

, and less often of several other tree species, including alder

Alder

Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

, apple

Malus

Malus , the apples, are a genus of about 30–35 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae. Other studies go as far as 55 species including the domesticated Orchard Apple, or Table apple as it was formerly called...

, elm

Elm

Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The dozens of species are found in temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ranging southward into Indonesia. Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests...

, horse-chestnut

Aesculus

The genus Aesculus comprises 13-19 species of woody trees and shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere, with 6 species native to North America and 7-13 species native to Eurasia; there are also several hybrids. Species are deciduous or evergreen...

, maple

Maple

Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...

, oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

, walnut

Walnut

Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...

, and willow

Willow

Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...

.

A peculiarity of this fungus lies in its ability to be as a drawing medium for artists. When the surface is rubbed or scratched with a sharp implement, it changes from light to dark brown, producing visible lines and shading.

The Anne Frank tree

Anne Frank tree

The Anne Frank tree was a horse-chestnut tree in the city center of Amsterdam that was featured in Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank described the tree from The Annexe, the building where she and her family were hiding from the Nazis during World War II...

 in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

suffered rot from Ganoderma applanatum before it blew over in 2010.