Linden

The linden's mycorrhizal partnerships

Unlike the maple, the linden can form ectomycorrhiza with macromycetes. However, as M. Ya. Zerova notes in her "Key to the Fungi of Ukraine," the linden's range of fungal partners is much narrower than that of the oak or birch, and they turn up less often.

Roger Phillips and David Arora mention the following mycorrhizal ties of the linden in their works:

1. Hazel bolete - Leccinum carpini: Although its main partner is the hornbeam, this mushroom with a "hammered" cap and blackening flesh sometimes forms a successful symbiosis with the linden. Some mycologists even distinguish a particular form of this bolete associated with this tree.

2. Suillellus boletes: Under old lindens on limestone soils you can sometimes find bluing pored mushrooms (for example, the scarletina bolete).

3. Brittlegills (Russula) and webcaps (Cortinarius): The linden supports an extensive mycorrhiza with many species of these genera.

Important: the linden is a potential partner tree for the death cap (Amanita phalloides). So green brittlegills in a linden wood must be picked with the utmost care, checking for a volva.

Linden as a substrate for saprotrophs

The linden's real value for a forager lies not in the soil, but in its wood. Linden wood is very soft and light and rots quickly, which makes it an ideal incubator for wood-decaying fungi (saprotrophs).

- Velvet shank (Flammulina velutipes): The linden is one of the velvet shank's favorite trees. From late autumn to spring, fallen linden trunks in parks and forests are often completely covered with the golden caps of Flammulina.

- Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus): Old lindens with hollows and dead branches often become home to massive colonies of oyster mushrooms.

- Dryad's saddle (Polyporus squamosus): As on many other broadleaf trees, this mushroom can grow in large numbers on lindens in spring.