Weird fungus - bright orange. What is it?

[conuly]

It was growing on our nearly-dead tree outside my window. I couldn't get a good picture of it, but the limb fell down recently (honestly, the best thing to do would be to chop down the whole tree now, but nobody listens when I say that) so I went up and took two pictures, one of the underside and one of the... uh... otherside.

Comments

[conuly]

Also, the color is slightly duller than it should be on the underside picture - that bit of orange at the top should be closer to what it is above. But there are definitely no visible pores - what you see in terms of structure is what you get, I was pretty careful to angle my phone to make it look right instead of just like any random wood chip.

[appadil.livejournal.com]

I'm not really trying to contradict you on the pores issue, but I'm not aware of a single North American species shaped like that which wouldn't have either gills or pores, however teeny and hard to see without squinting through a hand lens. There are some polypore species whose pores absolutely can't be seen without high-resolution magnification, but the only ones I know of are smaller and paper-thin.

...It occurs to me that your fungus may have taken a tumble when the branch fell and we may actually be looking at it upside down. If so, it could be the Cinnabar-Red after all, with the knobbly poreless "underside" being the cap, which fades with age (http://www.messiah.edu/Oakes/fungi_on_wood/poroid%20fungi/images/Pyc%20cinnabarinus%20habit%20LG.jpg), and the bright orange "top" being the pore surface (http://www.messiah.edu/Oakes/fungi_on_wood/poroid%20fungi/images/Pyc%20cinnabarinus%20pores%20FH.jpg).

[autovatic.livejournal.com]

I think it's almost certainly a cinnabar red, myself. I don't think I've ever run across another shelf fungus that colour.

[conuly]

No - before it fell, the orange part was still the top.

And I really can't *see* pores, though it's certainly possible they're just really tiny.