What is it?
When we talk about fungi we more often than not, like so many plants and trees, are actually referring to the fruiting body of the fungi. That is to say, that the mushroom looking thing we stumble upon is actually the “flower” of the fungus. The rest of the fungus, which we cal mycelium is actually in the earth or within the host like trees, for example.
The mycelium is a network of filaments, or fibre like structures, that weave their way into and around the soil or host soaking up nutrients and moisture that it needs to survive. When the conditions are right, more often than not after some rain, the mycelium send out its fruiting body to eventually release spores as its way of reproduction. Some fruiting bodies only last a few days where others can live for 40 or 50 years, such as some members of the family of bracket fungi.
Uses
Traditional uses of this fungi was really the inspiration for this post. I have been processing amadou recently and thought you guys might like to know more about it.
Amadou is also known as mushroom leather and is used to create a very fine tinder for primitive and prehistoric methods of fire lighting. It’s valuable to people in the bushcraft community because it can catch the smallest and coldest of sparks from iron pyrite or a steel striker.
Tinder fungus such as amadou has been used as tinder since at least the time of Ötzi. Ötzi, also called the Iceman, is the well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived between 3400 and 3100 BCE. The mummy was found in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps, hence the nickname “Ötzi”. He is Europe’s oldest known natural human mummy, and has offered an unprecedented view of Copper Age (Chalcolithic) Europeans. He was found to be carrying Amadou in his pocket. The kit he carried featured pieces of over a dozen different plants, in addition to flint and pyrite for creating sparks. Our prehistoric fire lighting kits, similar to what Ötzi carried, can be found here.[efn_note]Wikipedia entry on Otzi[/efn_note]
It is also valuable because the processing takes effort and time. The bracket is made up of three layers:
- The “cuticle” is the upper surface and can be very hard and difficult to remove.
- The “amadou” layer which is the jam in the sandwich.
- The “pores” which are tube like structures that release the spores, a process called sporulation, during the reproductive cycle.
The removal of these two outer parts (1 & 3) is time consuming and difficult. The amadou layer then needs to be boiled for anything up to 3 days and then pummelled gently to separate the fibres and soften the “leather” this process puts a lot of people off processing it and makes it an expensive process. Some people use the boiled liquid as a tonic for an upset stomach, however it has a strong purgative effect and should be avoided.
Traditionally the fungus Forms formentarius is used to make amadou and is still considered the best, it does however grow mainly in colder northern regions and primarily on silver birch trees. Nearly all bracket fungi can be made into tinder fungus and, here in the south of England, I favour the Ganoderma australe variety, it makes a tougher leather but still catches the smallest of sparks. It is the variety we sell most of in our online shop. It also has the providence of being locally sourced and locally produced, rather than importing from further afield.
Harvesting
Removing a bracket fungi from a tree does not harm the tree in any way, the tree is already dead or dying. As previously mentioned, the bracket, is the fruiting body of the mycelium network that has already infected and started to kill the tree, causing heart wood rot. I always leave a couple of brackets on the tree so I can come back the following years to collect more. Generally speaking we don’t want the older brackets anyway as they get older they have less amadou layer and they are tougher to break into.
I hope this has given you some insight into a few uses for a bracket fungus and if you fancy giving it a go you can get your special prehistoric or primitive fire lighting kits here.
All the best,
Tom