Auriporia aurulenta

Auriporia aurulenta forms effused (spread out) crusts on dead conifer wood. The fruit bodies can spread up to 10–20 cm across and about 2–5 mm thick. When fresh, the pore surface is vivid orange to golden and the margin is fimbriate (fringed) and sterile. Over time the colour dulls to ochre. The pores are small (2–3 per mm) and round, and the tube layer is the same colour as surface. The context is soft and pale. Older specimens often develop a cracked, wrinkled (rugose) surface. A distinctive feature is the pleasant almond smell of fresh specimens, which can persist in dried herbarium material. Under the microscope, Auriporia aurulenta has a dimitic hyphal system (generative hyphae with clamps and skeletal hyphae) and conspicuous encrusted cystidia.^[3]

This fungus is rare and localized in temperate Europe, where it occurs in Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Yugoslavia, South Germany, Switzerland, and Ukraine.^[4] In East Asia, it has been recorded from Japan and Koreas. It is a lignicolous saprotroph primarily in old-growth conifer forests.^[5] Auriporia aurulenta grows on decaying trunks of spruce (Picea) and other conifers. It was originally recorded from Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and Central Europe.^[5][3] By the 1980s it was known from only a few countries – former Czechoslovakia being the fifth country record. Other recorded habitats include virgin spruce forests in Czech Republic (Moravia),^[6] alpine conifer woods in Switzerland, and montane forests in Germany and France. It has also been found in Ukraine and former Yugoslavia. Due to its specific habitat requirements (undisturbed, mossy conifer stands), A. aurulenta is considered rare throughout its range and is included on Regional Red Lists of threatened fungi.^[5]