Laetiporus gilbertsonii is the western North American chicken of the woods that grows on hardwoods, especially oak and eucalyptus. It forms overlapping clusters of yellow to orange shelves, often concentrically banded, with a yellow pore surface. It is parasitic and saprobic, causing a brown heart rot, and often fruits year after year from the same stump or log.
Edible with caution. It occasionally causes gastrointestinal upset, apparently from old or undercooked specimens. Eat only young, fresh growing margins, in small quantities at first, and cook thoroughly. Old fruitings on eucalyptus are often infested with termites. Shelves are distinctive, but confirm a pore (not gill) surface.
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Habitat
Parasitic and saprobic on living and dead hardwoods, principally oaks and eucalyptus, on trunks, logs and stumps. Fruits from late summer into fall and winter, often in dry weather before the rains in coastal California.
Distribution
West Coast and southwestern United States and western Mexico; also reported from South America. Var. pallidus (white pore surface) occurs along the US Gulf Coast.
Characteristics
Fruit body: overlapping, rounded, fleshy shelves; individual caps 6–14 cm across, clusters up to about 55 cm. Upper surface: bright to pale yellow or orangish yellow with reddish-orange to orange concentric bands, fading with age and sun; margin yellow, becoming whitish. Pore surface: bright yellow, not bruising, 2–3 pores per mm (white in var. pallidus). Flesh: 2–3 cm thick, soft and watery when young, white to yellowish, becoming chalky and crumbly. Spore print: white. Spores: roughly 4–7 × 3–5 µm (sources differ), ellipsoid to oval, smooth, inamyloid.
