Red Pore Polypore     Subtribe

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

The pores red, pink, or orange-red, or the cap at least partially one of those colors

Diagnosis

• Pore surface red, pink or red-orange; cap at least partially concolorous: often completely so, but sometimes just a band around the edge
  
• Fruiting body very tough to hard

Narrow down your identification:

• Cap up to 5" wide, bright orange red or scarlet, pores bright scarlet; entire fruiting body changing to magenta or black with KOH.
  
• Cap may fade from weather, but pores usually stay bright

• Cap usually zonate and hairy, reddish orange to tan; pores concolorous, sometimes becoming gray to almost black with age
  
• White rot

Pores pale pink to pinkish brown; cap surface concolorous, darkening to brown or black with age from the center out, often leaving the margin pink while the rest of the cap has darkened

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