- Leaves on affected trees have a characteristic silver appearance which appears soon after petal fall.
- Whole trees or individual branches may be affected.
- The silver leaf symptom is due to a separation of the upper epidermis from the palisade layer in the leaf.
- Necrotic areas may appear on severely silvered leaves.
- Affected branches when cut often show a purple discolouration in the wood.
- The fungus causing the wood decay produces a toxic substance that when translocated to the leaves, induces the silver leaf symptoms.
- Affected trees often have evidence of large wounds or pruning cuts.
- Affected trees may decline over several years before dying.
- Once the tree or tree parts die, they may become covered in the bracket-like fructifications of the fungus.
- These are variable in size and shape, but usually 1.5‑3 cm across, 1-2 cm wide and 0.2-0.5 cm thick.
- Their lower surface is smooth and purplish and the upper hairy and pale brown in colour.
- Fruiting bodies are never found on live wood.
Other problems that may be confused with silver leaf
- The silver foliage and fungal fruiting bodies are very characteristic.
- Silvering of foliage may also be caused by frost.
- The bracket fruiting bodies of silver leaf may be confused with those of the many-zoned polypore (Coriolus versicolor).
- The latter are usually larger (4-10 cm across, 3-5 cm wide) and distinctly coloured with concentric zones of black-green, grey-blue, grey-brown or ochraceous-rust with a white or cream margin and very common on the remains of dead tree trunks in orchards.
- C. versicolor is a saprophytic fungus colonising dead or dying deciduous trees.