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

[appadil.livejournal.com]

The underside is what's really throwing me for a loop, here- the top photo looks for all the world like the Cinnabar-Red Polypores I collected last fall, but they're entirely the wrong color beneath, and the lack of visible pores is a confound since it could imply either no pores or very tiny pores.

My best guess is Beefsteak Polypore if it's soft and fleshy or Varnished Conk if it's hard and woody, but I'm really going out on a limb... especially because both of those generally prefer the base of trees to the branches. Shelf fungi in general can negatively impact the health of a host plant, but a lot of them also go for deadwood so if you haven't seen this fungus before now, it might have moved in because your tree was already so dead.

[conuly]

The tree has been largely dead for years now, though it hasn't affected entire limbs (mostly) until recently. Like I said, I think the best thing would be to take it down entirely. It's lost enough wood through storms that it's no longer tall enough to actually damage our house or our neighbors, but still.

[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.