Shortoporus     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 ground

Cap variable in size, but averaging 3-4"
Flesh soft, flexible, though it may dry hard and brittle

Diagnosis

• Cap and stipe fleshy and substantial, flexible
  
• Pores very short: 1-5 mm
  
• Pore surface pale
  
• Fruiting bodies irregular, often slightly lobed, stalk often off-center
  
• Fruiting bodies sometimes clustered or compound, but more often singly or in troops

• It's possible to mistake them for boletes; but their flesh is tougher, they lack the deep colors that some boletes have, and their tubes do not separate easily from the cap. Their stem is not black and rooting, as in Polyporus radicatus. Their coloration is similar to a young Bondarzewia, which could be about the same size at that stage in its development, but a Bondarzewia is likely to be much more irregularly shaped at that point

Microscropic Characters

• Hyphae monomitic

Narrow down your identification:

• Lightly colored - - at best pastel-ish.
  
• Flexible flesh that often dries hard and brittle
  
• Cap usually about 4" across, although their size is quite variable

• Cap grey, brownish or blackish, sometimes slightly scaly; except for the spores, this is the way to tell it from Albatrellus, as no Albatrellus species have these colors (although one species is dark slate blue)

Cap and stalk some dingy combination of grey, brownish or blackish, perhaps with tinges of olive, bluish or other faint colors; sometimes with minute scales or fibers
Cap almost round, often virgate
Flesh white to grey, tinged with various colors like cap
Taste sometimes bitter
Odor absent when fresh, sweet to spicy when dried

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