Winter Polypore

Polyporus brumalis

On rotten deciduous wood. Spring.

Fruiting bodies small, annual. Cap 2-5 (8) cm across, flat, sometimes with a blunt umbo or slightly depressed, matt, fibrous, finely scaly, grey, greyish-yellowish-brownish, blackish-brown when old. Tubes 1-3 pm long, whitish, pale cream or even ochre, with a white bloom, somewhat decurrent down the stem. Stem 3–6x0.2–0.5 cm, round, brownish, yellowish-brownish, finely scaly when young, smooth-surfaced when old. Flesh white, leathery, hard, without any particular smell or taste.

Characteristic features: cap finely scaly, greyish-yellowish-brownish. Grows throughout the growing season, more in spring, singly or in small groups, causing a white rot of the wood. Inedible. Common.