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Hosts: Spruce, true fir, Douglas-fir, pine
 Symptoms/Signs:
Phellinus pini produces swollen knots where branches
were previously shed, irregular bulges with exuding resin, and resin
flow from knots. It also produces brown fruiting bodies at branch
bases, branch stubs, knots, wounds, and cracks. These fruiting bodies,
or conks, are bracket-like with a brownish-black upper surface,
concentric furrowed rings and a brown undersurface with spores.
Punk knots are common in Douglas-fir, western larch, pines, and
some spruces. A punk knot is a mass of tightly packed sterile brown
hyphae that extends from a decayed branch stub within the trunk
to a local swelling on the surface.
 Biology:
Decay often begins near the junction of heartwood and sapwood
and may extend into sapwood adjacent to wounds. The decay is often
confined to the heartwood of mature trees, either in one central
column or in several discrete columns that extend from branch stubs.
Effects: Phellinus pini is thought
to be the most common trunk decay fungus of conifers in North America.
Decay columns commonly extend 10 meters or more, rendering entire
trunks useless for lumber. Decay is much more extensive in old trees
in virgin and unmanaged forests than it is in managed forests where
trees are harvested at relatively young ages.
References: 27,
30, 92
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