E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on wood, 2) a spore-bearing surface that is dingy yellowish gray flushed with violaceous or pink tints, with conic or fringe-tipped spines, the margin filamentous to rhizomorphic, and often lighter to cream-colored, 3) spores that are small, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, 4) cystidia that are numerous in the spines especially at the tips, originating in the trama, cylindric in their distal part, projecting, thick-walled, and encrusted, and 5) a dimitic hyphal system, the generative hyphae with clamp connections.

Steccherinum fimbriatum has been found in BC, WA, OR, MB, NB, NS, ON, PE, AZ, CA, CO, GA, IA, MI, MN, MT, NC, NM, NY, OH, PA, and WI, (Ginns). It is the most common species of the genus in Scandinavia (Eriksson). It is widely distributed in the northern hemisphere (Maas Geesteranus). It occurs in Switzerland and Asia (Breitenbach).

Fruiting body:
resupinate, loosely adnate, often widely spread out; spore-bearing surface "odontioid, fairly soft but tough", usually pale violaceous or gray-reddish (in herbarium dark ochraceous or sometimes grayish, even yellowish gray); aculei [spines] spines conic, penicillate [brush-like], about 0.02-0.03cm long, 4-5 per millimeter; subiculum 0.01-0.2cm thick, colored as the spore-bearing surface or slightly paler; margin "more or less filamentous to rhizomorphic" with several centimeter long threads, (Eriksson), resupinate, attached loosely, forming membranous patches several centimeters to decimeters across, consistency membranous-tough; "gray-pink to gray-lilac or pink-brown"; surface uneven, tuberculate-wrinkled, finely verrucose, warts up to 0.5cm long, "but usually shorter and finely fringed on the tips" (from projecting cystidia); "margin lighter to cream-colored and strongly fringed", often also with conspicuous rhizomorphs, (Breitenbach), effused [spread out], often attaining considerable size, partly separable; dingy yellowish gray flushed with pink, pinkish gray, "sometimes partly flushed with purple or violaceous tints, or dingy purplish brown"; "porous, somewhat floccose, or areolate, sometimes shiny as if suffused with some glutinous matter, smooth or veined or marked by raised rhizomorphic strands"; spines up to 0.05cm long, 0.01-0.02cm wide, "subdistant to crowded or aggregated into dense clumps, rarely simple, usually variously connate, wart-like to more elongate and then usually flattened or with fluted sides", pulverulent [powdery] to granular, colored as the rest of the spore-bearing surface, "tip conspicuously shaggy or spiny with tufts of white bristles"; margin fimbriate and forming rhizomorphs, whitish, becoming colored as the rest of the spore-bearing surface; flesh less than 0.05cm thick, leathery-tough, (Maas Geesteranus), spore deposit white (Buczacki)

Microscopic:
SPORES 3.2-3.5(4) x (2)2.2-2.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, thin-walled; BASIDIA 4-spored, 18-20 x 4-4.5 microns, "subclavate, slightly sinuous", with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA (pseudocystidia) numerous in the spines, more rare or lacking in the spore-bearing layer between the spines, strongly encrusted toward the obtuse tip, "the encrusted part normally 40-50 x 8-10 microns"; HYPHAE dimitic, generative hyphae 3.5-4 microns wide, thin-walled, with clamp connections and sparse branching, in the spine trama together with skeletal hyphae that are (2.5)3 microns wide, thick-walled, rarely branched, without clamp connections, interwoven with the generative hyphae; subhymenial layer thin, with short-celled hyphae, always with clamp connections; RHIZOMORPHS composed of generative and skeletal hyphae, (Eriksson), SPORES 4-5 x 2.5-3 microns, elliptic-oval, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, some with droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 15-18 x 3.5-5 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA (skeletocystidia) thick-walled, upper half +/- strongly encrusted, projecting part 20-40 x 2.5-9 microns, aggregated on the tips of the spines; HYPHAE dimitic, generative hyphae 2-4 microns wide, thin-walled to thick-walled, septa with clamp connections, skeletal hyphae 2-6 microns wide, thick-walled, (Breitenbach), SPORES 3.3-4 x 2.5-3 microns, broadly elliptic to oboval, adaxially little flattened, smooth, colorless, with small oblique apiculus; BASIDIA 4-spored, 15-20 x 3.5-5.5 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA 3-9 microns wide, "of tramal origin, numerous to abundant at tip of spine, rare to absent further back", conspicuously projecting, usually heavily encrusted, cylindric in the distal part, with obtuse tip, HYPHAE dimitic, of generative and skeletal hyphae, generative hyphae 2.5-4.5 microns wide (not inflating), branched, thin-walled to moderately thick-walled, septate, with clamp connections, skeletal hyphae 3.6-5.4 microns wide, "thick-walled to almost solid", those adjoining substrate frequently brownish, context of spines similar, with most skeletal hyphae solid, (Maas Geesteranus)