Bondarzewia berkeleyi

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 ground

Large (6-18" or more across), compound fruiting body with irregular caps, usually right next to a tree or even surrounding it
Flesh flexible, tough but not hard

Fruiting body composed of a few large caps, each larger than a three or four inches across

Pores creamy.
Caps creamy tan to brown, with yellow mixed in
Usually occurring at the base of hardwoods

Bondarzewia berkeleyi     (Fries) Bondartsev & Singer

Here are the characters that distinguish this species from the others in its group. For its more general characters, see higher up on the page.
If there's just a few words or a microscopic feature here, a more thorough description can be found above.

Diagnosis

• At the base of hardwoods, especially oaks; acquires a disgusting odor in old age

• The image shows a typical adult carpophore: compound, over a foot across, with caps (including pores) almost an inch thick

Comments

On the theory that no polypore is poisonous, I and my father tried a young


 

 

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