Summary:
See also Crust and Veined categories. Phlebia radiata has a gelatinous pinkish-orange to red (occasionally tan or purplish) fruitbody, growing flat on wood, in crowded radiating folds or wrinkles with a hairy margin. It does not have true gills but the exposed surface has vein-like folds. Some other Phlebia species (e.g. P. tremellosa) are not included here because the veins form a pore-like surface.

Cap:
1-4cm across, fused in large sheets flat on wood (fertile surface covering exposed area), but individual fungi circular with observable limits; with hairy margin, (Lincoff), fully resupinate [lying flat], attached firmly, (according to literature rarely somewhat erect to reflexed at margin), initially as rounded spots one to several centimeters across, which grow together and can then form expanses of several decimeters; marginal area lighter to whitish and pectinate to fringed, (Breitenbach), effused [spread out flat], separable when fresh, 1cm by 2cm, up to 10cm by 10cm or longer where individuals converge, up to 0.08cm thick; margin up to 0.3cm wide, fimbriate [fringed], sometimes granulose, usually colored as fertile surface, but occasionally a more pronounced orange or pinkish, (Ginns(12)), annual, (Arora), closely attached when growing on bark and wood, often encrusting mosses and then subramose, (Eriksson)

Flesh:
0.05-0.1cm thick, waxy-soft, somewhat gelatinous, (Lincoff), gelatinous and soft when moist, corneous and tough when dry, (Breitenbach), up to 0.03cm thick, cottony; white to pallid, (Ginns(12))

Gills:
exposed spore-bearing area pinkish to orange-red or coral red; raised with ridges and warts, with hairy margin, (Lincoff), flesh-colored to bright orange to pinkish red, fading to whitish when old, underside of margin (if free) with white woolly hairs, (Arora), bright to pale orange or pink-gray to violet-gray; surface often radially furrowed when young and at the marginal zone, undulating, tuberculate, older specimens often verrucose to lobed, (Breitenbach), usually a reddish orange or pinkish, "occasionally tan to pale orange, rarely darker purplish with a gray bloom, waxy or pruinose, often translucent, the folds narrow", up to 0.05cm deep, "interrupted, rarely branching, often wart-like, not forming pits but radiating, occasionally gyrose-plicate", (Ginns(12)), orange-red when young, then darkening to violaceous red, blue or violaceous-gray, (Eriksson)

Microscopic spores:
spores 3.5-7 x 1-3 microns, sausage-shaped or elliptic, smooth, (Arora), spores 3.5-4.5 x 1.5-2 microns, sausage-shaped to elliptic, with sharp tip, smooth, colorless, (Lincoff), spores 4.5-5.5 x 1.5-2 microns, cylindric, slightly allantoid [curved], smooth, iodine negative, colorless, with two droplets; basidia 4-spored, 25-30 x 3.5-4 microns, cylindric-clavate, clamped; leptocystidia inconspicuous, clavate to fusiform, in the hymenium and in the hymenial trama; hyphal system monomitic, hyphae 1.5-4 microns wide, with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores (4)4.5-5.5 microns x 1.5-2 microns, cylindric or narrowly oblong, in profile reniform or adaxially flattened, smooth, IKI-, colorless, thin-walled; basidia 20-27 x 3.5-5.5 microns, slenderly clavate; cystidia present in about half the specimens, about 45 x 2(3) microns, projecting up to 30 microns, cylindric or filiform, thin-walled, some gloeocystidia arising in the subhymenium, clavate, 17-40 x 6-12 microns, others arising in the context, cylindric or clavate, often septate, 30-100 x 6-11 microns, (Ginns)

Spore deposit:
whitish (Lincoff)

Notes:
Phlebia radiata has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NB, NL, NS, ON, QC, AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV, (Ginns(5)), Europe (including Switzerland), and Asia, (Breitenbach).

EDIBILITY

inedible (Arora, Phillips)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Coriolus subchartaceus Murrill
Hymenoscyphus luteovirescens (Roberge ex Desm.) W. Phillips
Phlebia cinnabarina Schwein.
Phlebia cystidiata H.S. Jacks. ex W.B. Cooke
Phlebia merismoides (Fr.) Fr.
Rutstroemia luteovirescens (Roberge ex Desm.) W.L. White