DanG if I know???

[CHARLIE]

This fungi is growing on a Silver Maple tree in Dover, Minnesota. I've seen many fungi that were like a shelf but never one like this. It's about 12' to 15' up the trunk, cream colored and at least a foot across.  I took my camera with me on my morning walk so I could share it's beauty with y'all. It was still a bit dark, and the picture doesn't do justice to how soft and pretty it really is. But it's the best I can do.

    

[Texas Ranger]

Looks suspiciously like an Oyster fungus.

[CHARLIE]

Don, I don't think it's Oyster Fungi.  I did a search on Oyster Fungi and it looks like this. The one here in Dover is more of a solid mass with small shelves coming off of it.

[Bro. Noble]

Charlie,

Isn't there a fungus named Shelf Fungus or Shelf Mushroom?

By the By, thanks for teaching me that English phrase.  I have been trying to use it where applicable as have some of the others.

I will try to teach you one in return:

In college, I had a friend from England.  One day I was telling him about my romantic endevors and he replied that I had been SHAT UPON.  I think that must be English for mistreated.

[L. Wakefield]

   There's one of the shelf fungi called 'hen of the woods' and it is supposed to be HUGE. But I think most of them are closer to the ground. I'm trying to remember the genus/species but it's lurking just out of reach. One (inferior) mushroom guide got me to a probable genuus name- Polyporus- it likely is a woody polypore.   lw (The one I'm thinking of may be Polyporus frondosus)