Piptoporus betulinus

We felled a Birch tree that was dying from Piptoporus betulinus, the wood was still sound in parts of the stem some was really brittle and the crown was completely dead. I cut some of the stem in two and the wood was very interesting, there were signs of Compartmentalization and brown rot from the Piptoporus betulinus (birch polypore)

I started a Kuksa and a spoon from the wood which gave off a nice menthol smell when the wood was carved, the smell is probably to do with the degradation of cellulose and hemicelluloses by the brown rot fungus in its early stages in the pieces that I saved.





It should hopefully produce a good effect to the Kuksa with the comparison between the brown and white wood.