Birch polyporeFomitopsis betulina

No, it is inedible for cooking — the flesh is corky, very bitter and astringent. It is not poisonous — there are no acute symptoms — but the taste is so unpleasant that it’s simply impossible to eat. In folk medicine it is used only as a tea, decoction or tincture, not as food.

In moderate amounts — yes. The folk tradition is to steep 1-2 pieces of dried flesh in 0.5 liters of boiling water for 10-15 minutes and drink a cup 1-2 times a day for a course of 2-4 weeks. Hot tea during a high fever has a pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory effect. Important: with cancer or other serious diagnoses, this is not an alternative to evidence-based treatment, only a supplementary remedy after consulting your doctor.

Betulinic acid and its derivatives (from birch bark and the mycelium), β-glucan polysaccharides (immune-stimulating), and triterpenoids (fomitopsic acids) with anti-inflammatory action. In laboratory studies it has shown activity against Borrelia (Lyme disease), some bacteria and tumor cells. There is not yet enough epidemiological evidence of its effectiveness in humans, so it is not officially registered as a medicine in Ukraine or the EU.

Exclusively on birches — an obligate parasite/saprotroph that lives only on this genus of trees. It starts as a weak parasite on still-living but weakened birches, then carries on living on the dead wood. It does not occur on other trees — it’s an absolute marker of the host tree.

Throughout the forest zone wherever there are birches. Especially abundant in Polissia (Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Volyn and Rivne oblasts), the Carpathians, the Carpathian foothills and the forest-steppe. In the steppe — in planted birch stands. One of the most common bracket fungi.

Young white fruiting bodies appear in July–August and mature by October. The best time to harvest is late summer and September, while the flesh is still white and springy. Old fruiting bodies that have survived the winter are usable too, but are less pharmacologically active. Collect only from dead or fallen birches — never from a living tree.

Three features together: 1) a hoof shape; 2) growth only on birch; 3) a white, finely porous underside. If all of these match — it’s definitely a birch polypore. The host tree is the most important diagnostic feature.

With the Tinder fungus (Fomes fomentarius) — that one is gray-black, with a hard, “stony” surface, and grows on beech and birch. With the Artist’s bracket (Ganoderma applanatum) — that one has a yellowish-white margin and a brown surface, on broadleaf trees. With chaga (Inonotus obliquus) — that one is dark, sooty black, on birches. A white, hoof-shaped bracket on a birch = only F. betulina.