The Scarlets Bracket Fungus (Pycnoporus coccineus) is a common polypore species – woody or leathery fungi with a multitude of tiny spore-producing cavities.
It was used by desert mob of Indigenous Australia, to be sucked on by teething babies, an astringent leathery “dummy” fruiting on dead wood that we can gratefully harvest without disturbing the mycelium, rather than contributing to unsustainable manufacturing of commercial dummies.
Scarlets Bracket is also used as bush medicine for older children and adults. It is chewed by people suffering from infections or ulceration in the mouth (two antibiotic compounds have been identified in the brackets)*, oral thrust and sore lips and gums.
I like to suck on it when I find it (which is not often) for a dynamic fungi oral cleanse which I only get every now nad then. Dynamic oral hygiene to prevent the vast array of oral diseases.
Scarlets Bracket rarely has a stem, and doesn’t have a smell and hardly a taste. The colour is a bit more orange than scarlet, and the colour will fade lighter the more it ages in direct sunlight.
DO NOT use this information solely as a tool for safe identification of edible wild mushrooms—use resources that are designed for that purpose.
Forage safety, respectfully and sustainably.
What mushrooms do you forage locally to you for medicine? Let us know in the comments 👇
*www.anbg.gov.au/fungi/aboriginal.html
