Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on hardwood, 2) a waxy fruitbody that is pale ochraceous to pale brown, often with a grayish, reddish or violaceous tint, the surface smooth or minutely warted, and the margin indeterminately thinning out, 3) spores that are elliptic, smooth, and inamyloid, 4) 2-4-spored basidia, 5) cystidia that are cylindric and thin-walled, often containing oil droplets, sometimes with slight encrustation, 6) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with at most scattered clamp connections, hyphae in the horizontal layer next to the substrate indistinct, subhymenial hyphae densely united, the tissue often filled with a fine-grainy resinous matter.

Microscopic:
SPORES (3.5)4-5 x 2.5-3 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic, thin-walled; BASIDIA 2-4-spored, 25-30(40) x 3-5 microns, narrowly clavate, without basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA "varying in number, often few", 70-120 x 4-5 microns, cylindric, thin-walled, often containing oil droplets, and sometimes with slight encrustation; HYPHAE monomitic, 2.5-3.5 microns wide, thin-walled, normally without clamp connections, but scattered clamp connections may occur in some specimens; hyphae in the horizontal layer next to the substrate "indistinct and more or less parallel", "subhymenial hyphae densely united"; "tissue often filled with a fine-grainy resinous matter", (Eriksson)

Notes:
Phlebia deflectens has been found in BC, NS, and AZ, (Ginns). It has also been found in Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, (Eriksson).

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Neoantrodia variiformis (Peck) Audet
Polyporus variiformis Peck