Beefsteak fungus or Shaggy 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.

There's no stem: the bracket is broadly attached, semicircular, hoof-shaped or cushion-like, 10 to 25 cm across, sometimes up to 35 cm, and up to 10 cm thick. It grows singly or in tiers of two or three. The margin is thick and rounded when young, becoming thinner.

Young brackets are bright rusty orange to reddish yellow on top, densely velvety and bristly. Later they turn rusty to dark brown, almost bald, rough and cracked, and finally black, hard and brittle. Old brackets often hang on the tree all winter, and when they fall they leave a blackish mark on the bark.

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 pores are cream to yellowish brown, later rusty, 2 to 3 per mm, and darken when touched. The tubes can be a few centimetres long. Young brackets sometimes weep clear, yellowish or reddish droplets from the pores and margin.

Sources disagree on the spore print colour: from whitish to yellowish brown.

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 is broadly attached to the trunk or branch.

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.

Young flesh is soft, spongy, wet and radially fibrous, yellowish ochre to light brown. Old flesh is dry, hard, brittle and dark brown to almost black. It turns black with KOH.

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.

The smell is indistinct.