Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on litter and decaying wood of confers and hardwoods, 2) a fleshy to tremelloid fruitbody with a merulioid or somewhat poroid surface that is brown with a cream-colored margin, sometimes with rhizomorphs, 3) spores that are elliptic or ovate, smooth, dextrinoid, and brown, 4) hyphae that are colorless or brown, both with clamp connections and both sometimes encrusted, skeletal hyphae acyanophilic and primarily confined to the hyphal strands. Carlsen(1) have used molecular studies to demonstrate 5 phylogenetic species within the Serpula himantioides complex, 4 of them in North America.

Microscopic:
SPORES (7)10-11.5(12) x (4)5-7(8) microns, ovate, flattened on one side, tawny or light brown in KOH-phloxine mount, apiculate; BASIDIA 4-spored, averaging 36 x 7.3 microns, sterigmata 7.2 microns long; BASAL LAYER next to substrate with colorless and brown hyphae parallel with the substrate, 120 microns thick, SUBHYMENIAL LAYER "appearing partly gelatinized, loosely arranged", parallel with the substrate but without brown hyphae, near the hymenium forming a denser layer perpendicular to the substrate, about 150 microns thick; brown hyphae 5-8 microns wide, colorless hyphae 2-5 microns wide, both types sometimes encrusted, both types with simple or compound clamp connections, (Cooke), SPORES 10-14 x 5-6 microns, narrowly elliptic, dextrinoid; hyphae with clamp connections, (Martin)

Notes:
Serpula himantioides sensu lato has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NB, NF, NS, ON, PQ, AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, IA, IL, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NV, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY, (Ginns(5)). It has also been found in Cuba, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, United Kingdom, South Africa, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, (Cooke)