How to tell Chicken of the woods from Sulphur tuft

Cap 2–7 cm across, conical or bell-shaped in young mushrooms, then flattened. Sulphur yellow or egg-yolk yellow, often orange-brown in the center. Surface smooth, moist, without scales. Margin uneven, in young mushrooms joined to the stem by a cobwebby veil.

The fruiting body is bushy, with 5-30 overlapping fan-shaped caps on a common base. Individual caps are 10-30 cm across, 6-30 cm tall, flat and spreading, fan-shaped, fleshy. The surface is smooth or with fine felty fibers; in young ones it's glowing yellow-orange, like fresh sulphur, glossy in wet weather. Color: strikingly sulphur-yellow to orange-yellow, with a characteristic shift from a rich orange center to a yellow or cream margin. In old ones it fades to pale yellow and cream.

Gills crowded, yellow or yellow-green at first, then darkening to gray-green or brownish olive — this is the key feature that distinguishes it from the edible honey fungus (whose gills are whitish or cream). Spore print purplish brown.

Tube layer — fine sulphur-yellow pores on the underside (2-4 pores/mm). Color: sulphur-yellow to orange. Spore print: white.

Stem thin, 4–10 cm tall, 0.4–0.8 cm thick, yellowish in the upper part, brownish or rusty below, fibrous. No ring, or a faint fibrous ring that soon disappears — the lack of a distinct ring sets it apart from honey fungus.

No distinct stem — the caps attach to the substrate by a broad base or a short lateral stem.

Flesh yellowish, thin, bitter-tasting — very bitter when raw. But cooking removes the bitterness while the toxins remain, so in a finished dish the mushroom won't give itself away.

Flesh: in young ones: tender, meaty, juicy, cream-yellow, characteristically reminiscent of chicken breast. In old ones: tough, leathery, fibrous, inedible. It doesn't change color when cut. Smell: characteristic, sourish-fruity-mushroomy with a hint of fresh cucumber, taste: mild, delicately mushroomy with a hint of chicken.

Smell mushroomy but indistinct, so it is of little help in identification.

Characteristic sourish-fruity with a hint of fresh cucumber — a recognizable feature.