Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a cup-shaped fruitbody that becomes spathulate to fan-shaped, 3) light purplish to pinkish brown color, 4) radiating pinkish brown to ocher-brown gills, 5) a rudimentary stem, 6) growth on hardwood in winter and spring, 7) a white spore deposit, and 8) amyloid spores 5-7 microns x 1.5 -2.2 microns.

Cap:
0.5-2cm, resupinate [flat on the wood] when young, cup-shaped [with gills inside], then soon expanded, spathulate to fan-shaped, with an indistinct stem; flesh-pinkish brownish; dull, white-farinose near the insertion of the stem; margin striate-furrowed, (Breitenbach), 1-3cm, laterally attached without a stem, light purple to purple drab or lilac with vinaceous tints, fading when old sometimes to "vinaceous fawn" [Ridgway(1) color] with "a conspicuous pallid pubescence dense over the lateral attachment of the cap to the substrate"; margin even to somewhat crenate [scalloped], (Miller), hygrophanous, finely tomentose, (Hansen)

Flesh:
thin, elastic; whitish, (Breitenbach)

Gills:
radiating from point of attachment, 10-15 reaching stem, broad, 1 to 3 subgills between neighboring pairs of gills; flesh-brownish to ocher-brownish, edges somewhat darker; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), radiating from point of attachment, alternating with subgills; fawn to pink, often fading when old, reddish brown dried, (Miller), rather distant (Hansen)

Stem:
lateral, only rudimentary (Breitenbach), none (Miller)

Odor:
none (Breitenbach)

Taste:
mild (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 5.1-7 x 1.5-2.2 microns, cylindric, slightly allantoid [curved sausage-shaped], smooth, iodine positive, colorless, some with drops; basidia (2)-4-spored, 15-30 x 3-4.5 microns, cylindric, with basal clamp connection; cystidia not seen; cap cuticle "of parallel, densely intertwined and gelatinized hyphae" 1.5-3 microns wide, septa barely visible, (Breitenbach), 5.0-6.8 x 1.5-2.1 microns, oblong to allantoid, smooth, amyloid, colorless in KOH, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 17-27 x (2.5)3.5-6.3 microns, narrowly clavate, thin-walled, yellowish in Melzer''s reagent and KOH; cystidia rare, 24-38 x 4.2-5.5 microns, hypha-like varying to somewhat fusiform, colorless in Melzer''s reagent and KOH, thin-walled; cap cuticle of pointed fascicles of thin-walled and thick-walled hyphae 2.5-5.0 microns wide, colorless or light yellowish in Melzer''s reagent and KOH, (Miller)

Spore deposit:
white according to literature (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Miller examined material from ID, ON, NY, Germany, and Sweden. It has been reported from BC (Lowe(1)), and there is a R. Bandoni collection at the University of British Columbia. It is also known from Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, (Courtecuisse).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Lentinus ringens Fr.
Panus ringens Fr.
Panus salicinus Peck