E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) flat, tightly attached growth on conifer wood, 2) fruitbodies that are tough, dark brown, smooth or slightly uneven, later densely irregularly cracked, with an abrupt margin, 3) fine dark bristles visible on the surface under 20x hand lens, 4) spores that are elliptic, smooth and inamyloid, 5) 2-4 microscopic layers: a hymenium of basidia, hyphidia, and setae 60-100 x 7-11 microns, a setal layer, and sometimes a hyphal layer and cortex layer.

Hymenochaete fuliginosa has been found in BC, WA, ID, AB, ON, AK, AZ, CA, CO, MD, MI, MT, NC, NY, PA, TN, Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine, China, Japan, and Turkmenistan, (Parmasto). It has also been recorded in Switzerland, but note setae are relatively short, (Breitenbach).

Fruiting body:
resupinate, attached tightly, forming crustose patches 0.05-0.1cm thick and several centimeters to about two decimeters across, consistency hard, tough, fruitbodies "several years old without distinct layering"; dark gray-brown, nut-brown to sepia-brown; "dull, smooth to slightly tuberculate, sometimes also fissured", with fine dark bristles under a 20x hand lens; "margin distinctly bounded to finely pubescent", (Breitenbach), resupinate, tightly attached, (0.005)0.0075-0.04(0.06)cm thick but usually only up to 0.03cm, 0.2-1cm across, then confluent and up to 10cm long, hard when dry; dark umber or dark chocolate, without olive or lilac tint; smooth or slightly uneven, later densely irregularly cracked; margin "thin, abrupt, when young rust brown and tomentose", then colored as the rest of the spore-bearing surface or with a darker zone; tomentum absent next to substrate, cortex absent or indistinct, dark line representing cortex absent, (Parmasto(1))

Microscopic:
SPORES 5.5-6.5 x 2.5-2.8 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, some with droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 15-19 x 3.5-5 microns, narrowly clavate, without basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA none; SETAE 50-80 x 6.5-8.5 microns, thick-walled, dark brown, narrowly subulate [awl-shaped], both exserted beyond the hymenium and enclosed in the trama, young setae colorless and very narrow, exserted beyond the hymenium; HYPHAE monomitic, "hyphae in the hymenium agglutinated and difficult to see, hyphae in the middle layers brownish, thin-walled, branched, 1.5-3 microns across, septa without clamps", (Breitenbach), SPORES 5-6.5(7) x 1.8-2.6(2.8) microns, cylindric, slightly curved; fruitbody lacks a tomentum layer next to the substrate and consists of 2-4 layers: 1) hymenium with basidia, hyphidia, and setae, 2) setal layer with setae and vertically oriented hyphae, 3) hyphal layer (present or absent), 4) cortex (absent or indistinct); BASIDIA 4-spored, 13-18 x (3.5)4-5 microns, clavate or subclavate, sterigmata about 4 microns long, basidioles absent or present, 2.5-3.5 microns wide, without encrustation; HYPHIDIA not numerous to numerous, 2.5-3 microns wide, colorless or yellowish, "thin-walled, without incrustation"; CYSTIDIA absent; setal layer 50-575 microns thick, SETAE numerous, (60)65-100 x (6)7-11 microns, "partly projecting up to 65 microns, subulate, with acute or very sharp tip, straight, naked, without incrustation"; "hyphal layer when present up to 30 microns thick, hyphae compact, longitudinally agglutinated"; cortex 5-25 microns thick when present, with hyphae "densely interwoven, indistinct, agglutinated, brown"; HYPHAE monomitic, setal hyphae absent [from hyphal layer], generative hyphae 2-4 microns wide, agglutinated, subindistinct [somewhat indistinct], "yellowish to brownish, thin-walled or with thickened walls"; "in context and hymenium crystalline matter absent", (Parmasto)