Garden Fungi – Pycnoporus coccineus

 
Grows on DEAD WOOD.
 
The appropriately named “Scarlet Bracket” is one of the most common and colourful brackets that can be found even in dry weather growing on sticks and wood.
 
Fruit-body: Orange scarlet, fan shaped, firm bracket attaching along the straight edge to wood. Size is very variable. Juvenile fruit-bodies are a lovely scarlet colour; the underside is a deeper colour and consists of fine pores. As this fungus ages, the bracket gets larger; also the surface colour tends to fade with age and exposure to strong sunlight – in fact some old specimens are bleached to white, but usually the pores retain some colour.
 
Stem: Usually none, occasionally a small, single attachment point.
 
Spore print: White.
 
Smell: None.
 
Habit: Can be solitary but more common in large groups on sticks and logs, refreshed after rain. It is probably the most widely distributed bracket fungus in Australia.
 
Notes: Has been seen colonising wet wooden stumps under old Queensland houses.