Names, authorship and dates from Index Fungorum.

• BasidiomycotaPhylum
• └─ AgaricomycetesClass
• └─ PolyporalesOrder
• └─ LaetiporaceaeFamily
• └─ LaetiporusGenus

Higher ranks from Catalogue of Life (COL26.9 XR).

Lifestylesaprobiontparasitism

A brown-rot decay fungus of trunks and stumps of broadleaf trees, especially oak and cherry

⚠ Before you pickWild fungi may be taken in small quantities for your own use (§39(3) BNatSchG) — but not in nature reserves or national parks, on closed land or on farmland in use, and never for sale (§39(4)). In Bavaria this right is anchored in Art. 141(3) of the state constitution and is limited to locally customary amounts; the competent authority is the district nature-conservation authority (untere Naturschutzbehörde). Local signs and ordinances come first.

Species protection from BArtSchV Annex 1 and §2(1), retrieved 2026-10-15; Red List from Dämmrich et al. (2016) (BfN / Rote-Liste-Zentrum). Not legal advice — local rules and signage may be stricter. BArtSchV Annex 1 · Red List data

• edible when cooked
• medicinal mushrooms
• poisonous mushroom
• edible mushroom

Edible when young and properly cooked, though it disagrees with some people

• ▸ Bright sulphur-yellow bracket fans with an orange centre, in overlapping clusters
• ▸ Soft, watery, crumbling sulphur-yellow flesh
• ▸ Tiny, sulphur-yellow pores underneath; no stem, attached directly to the wood
• ▸ Usually on trunks and stumps of oak, wild cherry and other broadleaves

The "chicken of the woods": a large, unmistakable bracket whose young fans are a celebrated wild food. It must always be thoroughly cooked, and it upsets some people, so a first taste should be small.