This wood decay fungus is found commonly in Eastern North America, and is associated with declining or dead hardwoods.

Murrill described 17 new Ganoderma species in his treatises of North American polypores, including for example, G. oregonense, G. sessile, G. tsugae, G. tuberculosum and G. zonatum.

[1][2] In 1908, Atkinson considered G. tsugae and G. sessile as synonyms of G. lucidum, but erected the species G. subperforatum from a single collection in Ohio on the basis of having “smooth” spores.

[7] Until this point, all identifications of Ganoderma taxa were based on fruiting body morphology, geography, host, and spore characters.

In 1948 and then amended in 1965, Nobles characterized the cultural characteristics of numerous wood-inhabiting hymenomycetes, including Ganoderma taxa.

[10][11] Others demonstrated the similarity in culture morphology and that vegetative compatibility was successful between the North American taxon recognized as ‘G.

[13] In a multilocus phylogeny, the authors revealed that the global diversity of the laccate Ganoderma species included three highly supported major lineages that separated G. oregonense/G.

[14] These results agree with several of the earlier works focusing mostly on morphology, geography and host preference showing genetic affinity of G. resinaceum and G. sessile, but with statistical support separating the European and North American taxa.

[14] Also, Ganoderma curtisii and G. sessile were separated with high levels of statistical support, although there was not enough information to say they were from distinct lineages.

The phylogeny supported G. tsugae and G. oregonense as sister taxa to the European taxon G. lucdium sensu stricto.