Hen of the woods or Umbrella polypore

The fruit body is a large bushy cluster of 30-200 fused, frond-like “caps” on a shared branching trunk. Individual caps are 4-10 cm wide, fan-shaped, thin, with a wavy margin. Color gray-brown or gray-olive, paler (ash-gray) in young specimens, dark brown in old ones. The surface is smooth or finely radially fibrous. Total weight of the cluster is 2 to 15 kg.

Large bushy fruiting body 20-50 cm across, with 50-200 small caps on a shared stem. Individual caps 1-4 cm across, round, convex-flat with a slightly depressed center. The surface is smooth or with fine felty fibers. Color gray-brown, ochre-brown, with fine radial fibrous patterns. Lighter when young, darker when old.

pored hymenophore — an important feature that sets it apart from frond-like gilled species. The tubes are short (2-4 mm), uneven, running down onto the stalks of the caps. Color whitish to yellowish. Spore print white.

Tubular hymenophore — fine, tiny white pores on the underside of the caps (1-3 pores/mm). Color white to cream, running down the stem. Spore print white.

The shared trunk of the cluster is thick, fleshy, whitish and repeatedly branched, each branch ending in a separate cap. The cluster is 15-30 cm tall. There are no separate stems as such — it is a single, segmented structure.

Each little cap has a thin central stem 1-3 cm tall and 0.3-0.5 cm thick, white or grayish white. Shared branching stem at the base joins all the little caps and grows down into the underground sclerotium.

flesh is white to pale cream; springy and fleshy in young ones, stringy and tough in old ones. Does not change color when cut. Young flesh has a pleasant nutty taste, similar to chicken.

Flesh pure white, brittle when young, somewhat tough when old. Does not change color when cut. Smell pleasantly mushroomy with a hint of flour or cucumber, taste mild, sweetish, not bitter.

Pleasant mushroomy smell with a nutty note, with a hint of fruit in some clusters. Mild taste, with subtle nutty and woody notes.

Pleasantly mushroomy with a hint of flour and fresh cucumber. A characteristic feature of the species.