Summary:
Also listed in Polypores category. As a member of the Polyporaceae Lenzites betulina is not normally grouped with gilled mushrooms, but the whitish "pores" are gill-like in appearance, often branching toward the margin or forming elongated pockets. It is shelf-like or bracket-like, or sometimes forms rosettes. The consistency is tough and leathery. The dry upper surface is velvety or hairy with concentric zones or grooves of various colors. It fruits on hardwood logs or stumps. Preliminary DNA suggests the proper genus may be Trametes, (D. Miller, pers. comm.).

Cap:
2-13cm broad, nearly round to fan-shaped, shelf-like, bracket-like, or forming rosettes; "dry, velvety or hairy, with narrow concentric zones or grooves of various colors: whitish, tan, buff, gray, brown, yellow-brown, dull orange, etc. (or in old age often greenish from algae)", (Arora), 1-5cm x 2-8cm, 0.3-2cm thick, roughly semicircular, or broadly attached with a part that is flat on the wood, margin "even to lobed or incised", upper surface white at first, becoming grayish to cream, often greenish when old due to algae; tomentose to hispid [bristly] in concentric, partly grooved zones, (Gilbertson), up to 8cm along wood, 5cm wide, and 2cm thick, (Phillips)

Flesh:
0.1-0.2cm, thin, tough, leathery; white, (Arora), thin ( 0.12-0.2cm), corky-leathery, fibrous; white, distinctly lighter than gills, (Gilbertson)

Gills:
gill-like structures, often branching toward margin or with elongated pockets; whitish, drying dingy yellowish or darker, often wavy when old, (Arora), with thin radial gill-like structures, up to 1.2cm broad at base, about 0.01-0.02cm thick, toward the margin new ones arising by forking from older ones or arising between older ones, 10-15 per centimeter when measured tangentially along margin when young, mostly wavy when old and when dry, (Gilbertson), forked and fused together in places (Phillips), gill-like or sometimes pore-like near margin (Lincoff(2)), cream to ocher or gray-brown (Breitenbach)

Stem:
none or rudimentary (Arora)

Microscopic spores:
spores 4-7 x 1.5-3 microns, cylindric to sausage-shaped, smooth, (Arora), spores 5-6 x 2-3 microns, cylindric, often slightly bent, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 15-20 microns long, clavate; cystidia absent, although branches of binding hyphae may be mistaken for cystidia when hymenium is collapsed; generative hyphae in subhymenium 2-4 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled, with clamp connections, generative hyphae in trama scattered, up to 5 microns wide, colorless, somewhat thick-walled to thin-walled, with clamp connections, skeletal hyphae 3-7 microns wide, solid to thick-walled, dominating in the tomentum, with a more distinct lumen in the trama, binding hyphae common in context and trama, up to 10 microns wide in KOH, colorless, thick-walled to solid, tortuous and much branched, "in the context with thin and whiplike branches, in the trama with stouter branches and below the subhymenium with swordlike branches, more or less parallel, partly pointing into the lower part of the hymenium, but in fertile specimens never above the dense palisade of basidia", (Gilbertson)

Spore deposit:
white (Arora)

Notes:
Lenzites betulina has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NB, NS, ON, PE, QC, AL, AR, CA, CT, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, and WV, (Gilbertson(1)).

EDIBILITY

no (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Calocera vermicularis Lloyd
Calopposis nodulosa Lloyd
Daedalea betulina Fr.