Blackfoot Polypore     Section

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fertile surface usually a layer of vertical tubes, of which the mouths are visible as pores on the underside of the cap or shelf.
Fruiting bodies usually tougher or harder than the "normal" gilled mushrooms, being leathery, corky, or woody. But they can be quite tender while actively growing
Once grown, they do not decay easily, remaining on the substrate for months or years
They often grow on wood, although a few are terrestrial (even those are usually growing on buried wood)
Fruiting body is usually a flat shelf, or hoof-shaped, protruding directly from the substrate, although sometimes it may have a short stalk.
Some forms never grow away from the substrate at all, so that all that is visible of the fruiting body are the pores.
Sometimes the pores are so minute that the fertile surface seems solid, until you look closely

Growing on wood

Not fitting the other choices, fruiting body with well-developed stem

Cap lacking hard crusty upper surface or large, angular pores
Fruiting body flexible if it's not really thick

Diagnosis

• Stem black, at least towards the base

Narrow down your identification:

Thin-fleshed cap 2-8" across, often somewhat lobed; warm yellow-brown to reddish brown, darkening to black above the stem, often appearing shiny or velutinate
On hardwood stumps and logs

Radicating stem
Pores white to yellowish, 2-3 per mm, cleanly separable from cap

Odor (scratch the pores and sniff) like watermelon rind
Cap 2-12" across, thick and fleshy
Cap with a feathery pattern of brown scales on a creamy background; shading to black in the center when it gets large
Stalk up to 2" thick, only black at the base

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