Beefsteak fungus or Oak bracket

The fruiting body is tongue- or fan-shaped and side-attached, joined to the substrate by a short lateral outgrowth. It's 10–20 cm (sometimes up to 30) across and 2–6 cm thick. The colour is bright red, purplish red or dark blood-red; young mushrooms have pink and orange tints, old ones are dark brownish red. The surface is rough and coarse, with tiny papillae.

The fruit body has no stem and forms a thick cushion, half-moon or shapeless lump, 10 to 30 cm across, occasionally 40 cm, and 5 to 15 cm thick. It often grows in several tiers.

Young brackets are cream, buff or yellowish and finely velvety, with a thick, rounded margin that weeps amber drops. Later they turn rusty brown, bald and lumpy, pitted where the drops have dried, and finally almost black and cracked.

The tubes are unique among mushrooms: each one stands separately, not fused to its neighbours, like a bundle of thin straws. They're yellowish at first, then reddish brown. The pores are small and round and darken when pressed.

The tube layer is up to 2 cm deep. The pores are tiny, round then angular, 4 to 6 per mm, cream-yellow to greyish, later ochre and brown, and slowly bruise brown. Drops can form on the pores too.

The spore print is pale, whitish to yellowish.

There is no stem, or it is very short and lateral, a small outgrowth at the base of the fruiting body. The mushroom attaches directly to the tree bark.

There's no stem: the bracket sits directly on the trunk base, root flare or roots.

The flesh is very juicy, full of a clear red liquid and streaked with whitish veins (hence the liver comparison). It's fibrous, like muscle meat, and the cut surface shows a marbled pattern. Old mushrooms turn tough and sour.

The flesh is yellow-brown, rusty or reddish brown, zoned and up to 10 cm thick. It's soft, spongy, fibrous and wet when young, then corky.

The smell is faint and sourish, with a note of fresh oak inner bark. The taste is distinctive: sourish, with a lemony, meaty edge. A slight acidity is normal for the species.

Old fruit bodies have a strong, unpleasant smell. The taste is bitter.