Summary:
Features include light brown to black, bald, incrusted, grooved, rough fruitbodies that are bracket-like, shelf-like, or growing flat on wood with the pores exposed, a yellowish brown pore surface, growth on hardwoods, and microscopic characters including setae that arise from the tramal hyphae, not from the hymenium, and the colorless spore walls that become pale yellow. It is common in the northeast of North America but not in the northwest (Gilbertson).

Odor:
indistinct (Buczacki)

Taste:
indistinct (Buczacki)

Microscopic:
spores 5-6.5 x 4-4.5 microns, oval to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 10-12 x 6-7 microns, clavate, simple-septate at base; setae abundant, 20-50 x 7-9 microns, ventricose to subulate [awl-shaped], thick-walled, dark brown in KOH; hyphae of context of 2 types, mostly the first: 1) 2.5-4 microns wide, brown in KOH, thick-walled, rarely branched, rarely simple-septate, 2) 2-3 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled, simple-septate; hyphae of trama similar, (Gilbertson), spores 4-5.5 x 4-5 microns, nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, pale yellowish, thick-walled; setae in the hymenium 15-50 x 5-8 microns, subulate, "often without tips (as if broken off) and sometimes with hyaline appendage", brown, thick-walled, (Breitenbach), setae abundant, 20-50 x 7-9 microns, ventricose to subulate, (Ginns), the distinguishing features of the genus Phellinopsis are setae that arise from the tramal hyphae, not from the hymenium, and the colorless spores walls that become pale yellow, (Ginns(28))

Spore Deposit:
yellow-white (Buczacki)

Notes:
Phellinopsis conchata has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, MB, NB, NS, ON, PQ, AR, CO, FL, IA, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, TX, VT, WI, WV, and WY, (Gilbertson). In BC it is known from one report on Acer (maple), (Ginns)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Clavaria piperata Kauffman
Clavicorona piperata (Kauffman) Leathers & A.H. Sm.