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Species library › Sparassis › Sparassis crispa
Fungi Partly documented

Sparassis crispa

Cauliflower fungus

The cauliflower fungus forms a large, frilly, cream rosette at the base of pines and other conifers, causing a brown root and butt rot. It fruits from late summer to autumn across temperate Europe. It is grown commercially in Japan and Korea on supplemented conifer sawdust, with a long, slow colonisation.

Sparassis crispa
Photo: Gerda Arendt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day IntermediateTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Very humid airBand in Plantistry
Light ShadeDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest period

Where it grows wild

Grows at the base of living or dead conifer trunks and on stumps, mainly pines but also spruce, cedar and larch, arising from roots. A brown rot fungus that is partly parasitic and partly saprotrophic.

Lowland to montane; recorded at 0–2025 m, median 450 m.

EuropeNorth America

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, unmodified.