Names, authorship and dates from Index Fungorum.

• BasidiomycotaPhylum
• └─ AgaricomycetesClass
• └─ PolyporalesOrder
• └─ PolyporaceaeFamily
• └─ PodofomesGenus

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

not recorded

Saprotrophic on dead broadleaf wood, especially beech trunks and stumps

⚠ 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

not recorded

Inedible — tough, corky and without culinary value

• ▸ Effused-reflexed brackets and crusts on dead hardwood, grey-brown to fuscous
• ▸ Pore surface whitish to grey-brown with angular pores that become irregular, maze-like and cracked with age
• ▸ Soft and tough when fresh, drying hard and brittle; paler, sterile margin
• ▸ Typically at the base of standing trunks and on fallen beech logs, well into winter

Long known as Datronia mollis (a name still in wide use); molecular work places the species in Podofomes. The English name Common Mazegill points to its ageing, maze-like pores.