SHAGGY ROTTER

  

This fungus, Inonotus hispidus grows on ash and apple and walnut trees but also on cherry apparently as in the photo above from Marianne Mogendorff.  

The photos below are of it growing on apple.

  

Actually, of course, this is only the fruiting body, a fungus's equivalent to a flower.  The main living part of the fungus is a web of white fungal threads inside the tree.  This fungus makes the wood brittle and trees can lose branches unexpectedly.

  

  

After about ten days the bracket turns from bright orange to brown and the bristles on the top show why it is called the shaggy bracket.  

 

Gradually after it has shed trillions of spores it begins to turn black and may persist on the tree for a year or more, warning of brittle branches.