Key Features:

• Mushroom shelflike, growing in overlapping masses or rosettes (or sometimes singly) on logs and stumps.

• Cap (upper surface of shelf) bright yellow-orange to orange or salmon-colored.

• Underside of cap bright sulfur-yellow when fresh.

• Stalk absent or nearly absent.

 Other Features: Medium-sized to very large; juicy when young but tough and fibrous at maturity and fading dramatically in old age (eventually becoming brittle and whitish); pores on underside of cap often so tiny they can hardly be seen.

 Where: In shelving masses or clusters or sometimes singly on logs, trunks, and stumps of both hardwoods and conifers (eucalyptus, oak, plum, fir, hemlock, spruce, etc.); wide- spread and common. It requires little moisture to fruit.

 Edibility: Widely regarded as edible when tender, but often causing gastrointestinal distress.

 Note: Also shown on the facing page, this colorful mush- room has no poisonous look-alikes but is sometimes poisonous itself. Perhaps because eucalyptus is the favored host in heavily populated central and southern California, the poisonings are often blamed on the eucalyptus. However, sulfur shelves growing on other trees have also caused digestive upsets. Conclusion: if you eat and enjoy this mushroom, always cook it thoroughly and do not serve it to lawyers, landlords, employers, policemen, pit bull owners, or others whose good will you cherish!