Cinnabar Polypore

Pycnoporus cinnabarinus

On dead deciduous trees, especially birches, very rarely on conifers. Spring, summer, autumn.

An annual fungus. Fruiting body medium-sized, up to 8 cm across, corky, flexible, fleshy; surface finely fibrous, later smooth or wrinkled, pale orange, reddish-orange, cinnabar-coloured. Hymenophore reddish-orange. Flesh soft, spongy, the colour of the cap. Characteristic features: grows mostly only on fallen birches, several fruiting bodies together, almost all year round. Grows singly or several fruiting bodies together, causing a white rot of the wood. Not only a forest sanitiser but also a showy fungus, listed in the Red Data Book of Lithuania.