Gymnopilus spectabilis

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.

Fruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)

Gills not free
Spore print tan, orange, deep ochre, yellowish olive, olive brown, rusty or cinnamon brown or deep brown
Ring usually either absent or not membranous

Growing on wood

Cap usually more than 2" across, and sometimes up to 8; usually tan, yellow, or pumpkin-colored

Spore print orange, rusty orange, or bright rusty brown
Entire fruiting body some shade of pumpkin-color or golden yellow; some species with tints or patches of other colors, or with tiny differently colored scales.
A drop of ammonia or KOH will stain the cap blackish
Flesh typically yellow
Taste typically bitter
Often growing cestipose

Gymnopilus spectabilis     (Fries) A. H. Smith

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

• Cap with no upper limit on size; pumpkin-colored; glabrous, sometimes minutely scurfy in age
  
• Partial veil persistent, fibrillose to cottony
  
• Odor sometimes like anise
  
• On hardwood

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 7-10.5 x 4.5-6 µm, often wrinkled

Comments

Brits tend to call this Gymnopilus junonius; Arora thinks that this is actually the correct name
There is a very big, thick-stemmed, West-coast version of this that grows with conifers; people who consider this (and I'm all for it) a separate species call it Gymnopilus ventricosus. It may well show up around here, as wood-rotters tend to be very cosmopolitan


 

 

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