Summary: Features include a brown or gray brown, hairy cap and stem, bitter taste, sometimes an iodine odor, and annual growth usually on the ground under conifers. Jahnoporus hirtus is fairly common in the Pacific Northwest.
Odor: according to Daniel Stuntz has iodine odor soon after picking (Arora), some with an odor of iodine evident soon after picking (Ginns(28)), pleasantly fragrant, nut-like, (Gilbertson)
Taste: very bitter (Arora)
Microscopic: spores 12-17 x 4.5-6 microns, spindle-shaped or cylindric, (Arora), spores 12.5-17 x 4.5-5.5 microns, fusiform, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 32-43 x 9-12 microns, 4-spored, clavate, with basal clamp, sterigmata swollen and up to 2.5 microns wide; cystidia lacking; context hyphae generative, 5-11 microns wide or with inflated parts up to 16 microns wide, colorless in KOH, moderately thick-walled, with occasional branching, with abundant clamp connections, trama hyphae 2.5-4 microns wide, thin-walled with clamp connections, (Gilbertson)
Spore Deposit: white (Arora)
Notes: It is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AZ, CA, CO, MI, NF, NY, and PQ, (Gilbertson).
EDIBILITY
no (Arora)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Bondarzewia occidentalis is more likely to grow in clusters, is not as bitter, and has warted amyloid spores, (Arora). Albatrellus species have different spores (Gilbertson). See also SIMILAR section of Scutiger pes-caprae and Bondarzewia mesenterica.
Habitat
annual, single or in groups on ground, "around old stumps and trees (especially conifers), sometimes also on wood (often buried)", (Arora), usually on ground under conifers, apparently from roots or other buried wood, (Gilbertson)