Lacquered bracket or Artist's bracket

The cap is kidney- or fan-shaped, usually 5–15 cm across, occasionally up to 25 cm, and 1–4 cm thick. Sometimes it is almost round, with the stem attached closer to the centre.

The surface is glossy, as if varnished, with concentric growth zones. The colours run from yellow and orange near the margin to red, chestnut and purplish brown in the centre, and old caps darken almost to black. In young specimens the growing edge is white or yellowish. The cap is often dusted with brown spores, which make it look matt until rain washes them off.

The fruiting body is 10-50 cm across (sometimes up to 70 cm), flat and spreading, fan-shaped or semicircular, and attached sideways to the substrate (the trunk of a broadleaf tree), with no stem. The upper surface is hard and corky, with clear concentric zones of annual growth, one zone for each year of life. It's brownish grey or olive grey, and mature brackets carry a rusty coating of spores. The margin is whitish when young and darkens with age.

The underside is covered in pores. They are small and round, 4–6 per millimetre, white or cream in young specimens, turning tobacco brown with age and darkening when pressed. The tubes are 5–20 mm long, white at first, then ochre.

The spore print is brown to reddish brown. That same brown dust often coats the top of the cap and nearby leaves.

Underneath are tiny white pores (4-6 pores/mm). The surface is whitish cream and darkens distinctly when pressed or scratched, a key diagnostic feature. The spore print is rusty brown and often shows as a rusty coating on the trunk around the bracket.

The stem is attached at the side or off-centre, usually 5–15 cm long, sometimes 20 cm or more, and 1–3 cm thick. It is lacquered like the cap, red-brown to purplish black, hard and often curved. In some specimens the stem is barely there.

There is no ring and no volva. When the fungus grows from a buried root, the stem comes straight out of the ground.

No stem. The fruiting body is attached to the substrate by its side edge.

The flesh is corky: spongy in young specimens and almost rock hard in mature ones, except at the growing edge. It is pinkish buff, ochre or light brown, doesn't change colour when cut and has no juice. The taste is bitter or almost indistinct.

The flesh is very tough, corky-fibrous and brownish chestnut, leathery and hard as wood. It's no use in cooking. The smell is faintly woody.

The smell is faint and unremarkable, and in many specimens barely noticeable. Smell won't help you identify it; look for the lacquer, the side stem and the pale pores.

Faintly woody, nothing distinctive.