A small, fan-shaped polypore on recently dead hardwood sticks, with an orange to orangish, radially scaly cap that fades to nearly white and large diamond-shaped to honeycomb pores. It often appears in late spring during morel season and persists through fall. North American material may belong to the recently described Neofavolus americanus.
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Habitat
Saprobic on recently dead sticks and small logs of hardwoods, usually with bark attached, often shagbark hickory; occasionally on living branches. Causes a white rot. Alone, scattered or gregarious from late spring through fall.
Distribution
Europe (described from France), China and Australia. Long reported as widespread and common east of the Rocky Mountains (MushroomExpert), but North American collections may belong to Neofavolus americanus, described from the USA in 2020: GenBank sequences from Michigan and Wisconsin are filed as N. americanus, and North American sequences match those more closely than Asian N. alveolaris. DNA may be needed to tell them apart.
Characteristics
Cap: 2-7 cm, fan-shaped, semicircular or kidney-shaped; orange to orangish when fresh, fading to yellowish or nearly white; radially fibrillose to scaly at first. Pores: decurrent, whitish to pale orangish; diamond-shaped to hexagonal, up to 1 mm wide and 2 mm long, radially arranged. Stem: usually a short, stubby lateral stem, occasionally central. Flesh: up to 2 mm thick, white, tough. Chemical reactions: KOH dull olive on the fresh cap. Spore print: white. Spores: 8-14 x 2.5-4 µm (MushroomExpert) or 11-14.5 x 4-5 µm (Wikipedia), subcylindric to narrowly elliptical, smooth.
