I recently purchased a good mushroom book and found out that this set of mushrooms I had found last Fall is called the “Artist’s Conk” (Ganoderma applanatum).
I almost spelled it “conch” since I am so used to doing seashell research on the conch (pronounced the same as conk).
It can be etched or painted and will stand up on a table for display. Sounds interesting, but they are very much attached to the trees they grow on and very difficult to remove. I half tried to do so without luck. I guess I need a knife. Or better yet, just take a photo!
See more photos and a picture of a carved drawing at Mushroom-Collecting.com
New England's Narrow Road 
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Swisstoons
Can you eat it? Before you paint it, I mean. Haha. Do you find morels in your book? That’s a very edible mushroom, prized her in Michigan. It can’t be cultivated….but crops up sometimes in suburbia as well as in the north woods. But there is also something called the false morel which contains toxins and which can be deadly (more deadly to some people than to others, I have been told). Do you remember Ewell Gibbons of Grape Nuts Cereal ads fame? He expounded on edible wild plants and fungi in his book, “Stalking The Wild Asparagus.” He died shortly after his name became a household word. Maybe one of the wild asparagus fought back?
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seashellsbymillhill
According to my book, this mushroom is too tough to eat, but some people make tea from it.
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