''Steccherinum tenue'' is a

hydnoid The hydnoid fungi are a group of fungi in the Basidiomycota with basidiocarps (fruit bodies) producing spores on pendant, tooth-like or spine-like projections. They are colloquially called tooth fungi. Originally such fungi were referred to the ...

crust fungus The corticioid fungi are a group of fungi in the Basidiomycota typically having effused, smooth basidiocarps (fruit bodies) that are formed on the undersides of dead tree trunks or branches. They are sometimes colloquially called crust fungi or pa ...

of the family

Steccherinaceae The Steccherinaceae are a family of about 200 species of fungi in the order Polyporales. It includes crust-like, toothed, and poroid species that cause a white rot in dead wood. Taxonomy The family was circumscribed by Czech mycologist Erast P ...

. It is found in the southern United States, where it grows on decaying

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of br ...

ous wood. The fungus was described as a new species in 1981 by mycologists Harold Burdsall and Karen Nakasone. The

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

, found growing on

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry (botany), berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non-Climacteric (botany), climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of ...

plants (''Vitis''), was collected in

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, wh ...

(

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...

) along the

Rainbow Falls Trail The Rainbow Falls Trail is an American hiking trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in Sevier County, Tennessee. The trail ascends Mount Le Conte, the third tallest in the park (and sixth-highest) mountain east of the Mississip ...

. ''Steccherinum tenue'' has also been found on

maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since ht ...

(''Acer''). The fungus is characterized by its thin grayish-yellow

fruit bodies The sporocarp (also known as fruiting body, fruit body or fruitbody) of fungi is a multicellular structure on which spore-producing structures, such as basidia or asci, are borne. The fruitbody is part of the sexual phase of a fungal life c ...

with grey to bluish-grey margins, a lack of

rhizomorph Mycelial cords are linear aggregations of parallel-oriented hyphae. The mature cords are composed of wide, empty vessel hyphae surrounded by narrower sheathing hyphae. Cords may look similar to plant roots, and also frequently have similar functi ...

s, and a scarcely developed subiculum. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''tenue'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

for "thin") refers to the thin fruit bodies.

References

Fungi described in 1981 Fungi of the United States Steccherinaceae Fungi without expected TNC conservation status {{Polyporales-stub