Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on wood, 2) a fruitbody that is membranous, soft, variable in color (pale tan to ochraceous, brownish red or burgundy, sometimes violet tinted, at first whitish to watery grayish), and smooth to slightly tuberculate, under a lens velvety from cystidia, 3) a margin that is whitish to pale reddish, fibrillose, and sometimes has rhizomorphs, 4) spores that are elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, 5) cystidia that are cylindric or tapered somewhat, blunt, thick-walled, and densely encrusted, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae branching at near right angles, without clamp connections or scattered single or multiple clamp connections on the subicular hyphae, the subhymenial hyphae smooth or encrusted with brownish orange granular to mucilaginous appearing material, the subicular hyphae smooth or encrusted with colorless granules.

Microscopic:
SPORES 5.5-6.5 x 2.5-3.5 microns, elliptic, flattened on one side, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; BASIDIA 4-spored, 28-38 x 4-6 microns, cylindric-clavate, without basal clamp connection; LAMPROCYSTIDIA 50-100 x 10-15 microns, projecting beyond hymenium, thick-walled, distal half strongly encrusted; HYPHAE monomitic, subicular hyphae 2.5-5 microns wide, thin-walled, "some sparsely encrusted with crystals", septa without clamp connections, (Breitenbach), SPORES 5-7 x 2.5-3 microns, normally elliptic with an oblique apiculus, but single spores vary to oval or subcylindric, adaxial side straight or slightly concave, contents oily plasmatic; BASIDIA 30-35 x 4-6 microns, subclavate, normally 4-spored and without basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA very numerous, reaching a length of 100 microns or more and a width of 10-15 microns, shape varying but normally subcylindric-subfusoid and obtuse, "walls of young cystidia thin but becoming finally very thick", cystidia richly encrusted; HYPHAE monomitic, subhymenial hyphae 2-4 microns wide, forming a dense, ceraceous context, thin-walled, without clamp connections; "subicular hyphae in young specimens with thin, later with more or less thickened walls, straight, more or less parallel to the substrate, 5-10 microns wide, in mature specimens normally richly encrusted, sparsely branched, with some clamps, singly, in pairs or sometimes in whorls", (Eriksson), SPORES 5.5-6.5 x 3-3.5 microns, elliptic, adaxially flattened, smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic, colorless; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-24 x 5-5.5 microns, clavate, colorless, thin-walled, sterigmata up to 4 microns long; CYSTIDIA 90-150 x 10-16(20), projecting up to 45 microns, cylindric or tapered somewhat to apex, with walls up to 3 microns thick, with infrequent secondary septa, densely encrusted with colorless crystals, occasionally cystidia are dextrinoid; HYPHAE monomitic; SUBHYMENIUM a compact textura intricata, hyphae 4-6 microns wide, branching at right angles or nearly so, colorless, thin-walled, simple-septate, "smooth or encrusted with brownish orange granular to mucilaginous appearing material"; SUBICULUM a loose to compact textura intricata to textura intricata-porrecta, hyphae 5-9 microns wide, regularly branching at right angles, colorless, thin-walled to slightly thick-walled, simple-septate with rare single and multiple clamp connections, smooth or more often heavily encrusted with colorless granules; CORDONS up to 500 microns wide, rind not differentiated, arranged in a textura porrecta-intricata, hyphae 7-10(12) microns wide, branching infrequent, walls slightly thickened or up to 2.5 microns thick, simple-septate with occasional single and multiple clamp connections, densely incrusted with colorless granules, (Burdsall)

Notes:
Phanerochaete velutina has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NS, NT, ON, PQ, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, IL, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, PA, TN, VT, and WI, (Ginns). It has also been found in Europe including Switzerland, and Asia, (Breitenbach), Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, and Sweden, (Eriksson), and Jamaica, Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Russia, and Armenia, (Burdsall).