Abortiporus     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.

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

Red Cap Polypore     Subtribe Cap at least partly red, pink or red-orange Pore surface white to pale buff, but may discolor reddish

Links from Look-alikes Medium Terrestriopolypore     Tribe Cap variable in size, but averaging 3-4" Flesh soft, flexible, though it may dry hard and brittle

Abortiporus     Genus     Murrill

Diagnosis

• Fruiting bodies flexible, hairy, duplex.
  
• Pores 1-3 per mm, pore-walls deteriorating in age to resemble a daedaloid hymenophore

• There's only one species here right now, so proceed directly to Abortiporus biennis
  
• The other species in the genus is Abortiporus fractipes, which is much smaller (maxing out at 2"), has smaller pores (4-5 per mm), and lacks the pink/red coloration. In the field, A. fractipes will probably key out under Trametes, another hairy, duplex genus

Microscropic Characters

• Hyphal system monomitic, with some thickened generative hyphae mimicking structural hyphae. Spore walls slightly thickened, ellipsoid, inamyloid

Narrow down your identification:

Frequently contorted, twisted, etc, and thus totally variable in shape; in particular, it can have pores on just about any part of the fruiting body
Cap up to 9" across; greyish cream to pinkish tan, sometimes reddening when handled; usually hairy
Stalk usually tapering from a wide base upward;
As with many polypores, it can develop in a rosette from a stalk when growing straight up from its substrate, or in a sessile shelf when growing out sideways; it also grows in a capless form which basically looks like a finger covered with pores, and one shaped like a shoehorn.

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