Lentinus     Genus

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)

Spore print "light-colored": white or buff, sometimes tinged with pink or tan. Greenish and (except for the Russulales) yellow spore prints also go here
Stalk fibrous, not fracturing like a piece of chalk

None of the special features distinguishing the other white-spored genera:
Gills not free, as in the Lepiotas and Amanitas
Basidia not extra-long, as in the Hygrophoraceae
Spores smooth, except for Lentinellus

Growing on trees or dead wood, leaves, or sticks, or organic debris, often in moss

All mushrooms with serrated gills go here
If the stem is central and well-developed, then the fruiting body (even the cap) is large and extremely tough

Lentinus     Genus     Fries

Diagnosis

• Cap usually scaly, often quite large
  
• Fruiting body tough to extremely tough
  
• Stalk central, well-developed
  
• Spores inamyloid, smooth, elliptical

Narrow down your identification:

Cap up to 5" across, buff with brown scales; margin incurved when young
Odor often fragrant or pungent
Gills and stem surface bruising brownish, flesh in general bruising or aging yellow
Stalk annulate; pubescent above the ring, scaly or fibrillose (concolorous with cap scales) below the ring

Cap up to 6" across
Stalk with a bulbous base

Cap commonly up to 16" across; white to buff at first, with some coarse hairs
Entire fruiting body aging yellow
Usually in wounds of living hardwoods

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