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Plate VIII

Chicken of the Woods

Laetiporus sulphureus

Edible young — cook thoroughly

Sulphur-and-orange bracket shelves with a pored underside and no stem at all.

Chicken of the Woods specimen

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  1. 1Bracket shelves
  2. 2Pore underside
  3. 3No stipe (wood-borne)

Specimen record

Hymenium
Pores (no gills)
Spore print
White
Season
Summer – fall
Habitat
Oak & hardwood; bracket, parasitic

Field notes

Overlapping, suede-textured shelves in vivid sulphur-yellow and orange, growing straight off oak and other hardwoods with no stipe. The underside is a fine yellow pore surface. Eat only the tender outer margins, always cooked; a minority of people react even then.

Look-alike risk · low

No dangerous look-alike for a careful forager — the white spore print and the hymenium confirm it. Still, verify every character before eating.

Take it further

Read the deeper field guides, browse Field ID topics, or carry the plate as original merch in the plate shop.