Summary:
Features include 1) a large, convex to flat or depressed, leathery fruitbody with whitish to brownish colors tinted with pink, reddish, or orange, somewhat zoned and often cracked, the margin incurved and lobed, 2) flesh that is white to light brown and not zoned, 3) decurrent, crowded teeth, 4) a stem that is central to off-center, bent or irregularly shaped, often bifurcate or trifurcate, and colored like the cap, 5) single to concrescent growth under conifers, and 6) microscopic characters. |Both the Baird(1) and the Baird(2) descriptions are based on dried material. |Some species in Sarcodon were reassigned starting in 2019 to Hydnellum based largely on molecular criteria (Larsson(2)); Larsson(2) introduced spore length (with ornamentation excluded) as a possible differentiating criterion between the two genera: 7.4-9 microns for Sarcodon and 4.45-6.95 microns for Hydnellum, with Sarcodon quercinofibulatus as an exception. If this criterion holds, Sarcodon stereosarcinon is likely to be moved to Hydnellum.

Chemical Reactions:
context tissue olivaceous to nonreactive in KOH, (Baird(1)), preserved context olive green in KOH (Baird(2))

Odor:
none (Baird(1), Harrison), absent to weakly pungent or farinaceous, (Franklin)

Taste:
none (Baird(1)), slightly farinaceous (Smith), slight, farinaceous, (Harrison), absent to mildly pungent (Franklin)

Microscopic:
spores 4.5-5.3 x 3.5-4.5 microns, nearly round to oblong, brownish; ornamentation tuberculate, angular nodulose, hilar appendage oblique; basidia 4-spored, 22.5-32.0 x 5.0-6.0 microns, clavate, without clamp connections, sterigmata 3.0-4.8 microns long; spine trama hyphae up to 6.5(11.0) microns wide, uninflated to inflated, without clamp connections; cap trama hyphae up to 20 microns wide, inflated, interwoven throughout the context, without clamp connections, gloeoplerous-like hyphae up to 9.0 microns wide; stem hyphae up to 12.5 microns wide, inflated, interwoven throughout the context, without clamp connections, gloeoplerous-like hyphae up to 7.5 microns wide, skeletalized generative hyphae present, (Baird(1)), spores 4.5-5.3 x (3.6)4.0-4.9 microns, nearly round to oblong, "angular, nodulose, brownish", "ornamentation tuberculate", hilar appendage oblique; basidia 4-spored, 22.5-31.0 x 4.0-5.6 microns, clavate, without clamp connection, sterigmata 3.0-4.1 microns long; cap trama hyphae up to 8.5 microns wide, interwoven throughout context, inflated to uninflated, without clamp connections, gloeoplerous-like hyphae present; stem hyphae up to 8.0 microns wide, interwoven throughout the context, inflated to uninflated, without clamp connections, gloeoplerous-like hyphae absent, skeletalized generative hyphae present, (Baird(2)), spores 4.5-5 x 3.5-4.5 microns (Smith), 4.5-5.0 x 3.5-4.5 microns, nearly round to oblong, tuberculate, (Harrison)

Spore Deposit:
[presumably brown]

Notes:
Sarcodon stereosarcinon is found in NS and NC. A collection from BC determined by K.A. Harrison is deposited at Pacific Forestry Centre.

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Clavaria mucida Fr.
Lentaria mucida (Fr.) Corner