Laetiporus cincinnatus
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Ecology: Parasitic and saprobic on living and dead oaks; causing a brown rot of the butt and roots; growing alone or gregariously at the bases of oaks or on the ground nearby; late spring through fall; fairly widely distributed from the Great Plains eastward. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.
Fruiting Body: Up to 45 cm across; usually consisting of several to many caps in a rosette but very rarely consisting of a shelving array near the base of the tree.
Caps: 4-20 cm across; 6-20 cm deep; up to 2 cm thick; fan-shaped to semicircular, kidney-shaped, or irregularly lobed; smooth to wrinkled; finely suedelike; pale to bright pinkish orange, often with vague concentric bands of alternating shades of color; frequently fading in maturity and with direct sunlight; the margin often whitish.
Pore Surface: Whitish; not bruising; with 2-3 circular to angular pores per mm; tubes to 5 mm deep.
Stem: Usually absent; when present poorly defined, whitish, tough, more or less central.
Flesh: Thick; soft and watery when young, becoming chalky and eventually crumbling easily; white; not changing when sliced.
Dried Specimens: Cap surface and pore surface become dull pinkish orange to dull brownish orange and retain these shades for at least 20 years in the herbarium; they can often be distinguished from herbarium specimens of Laetiporus sulphureus, which are yellow to yellow-orange.
Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.
Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface and flesh.
Spore Print: White.
Microscopic Features: Spores 4-6 x 3-4 m; broadly ellipsoid; smooth; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Hymenial cystidia not found. Contextual hyphal system dimitic. Contextual binding hyphae 5-15 m wide; often branching; aseptate; smooth; walls 1-1.5 m thick; hyaline in KOH. Hymenial trama generative hyphae 4-7 m wide; tubular and unbranched; usually parallel; septate; smooth; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH. Clamp connections not found.
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