Order Polyporales > Family Phanerochaetaceae.
Porostereum is a genus of crust fungi with no pores on the hymenium.
There are 4 (or more in some classifications) species.
Porostereum spadiceum, found in Australia is on the Queensland Government species list.
The annual fruit bodies can be found on trees or dead wood.
It is a stereoid crust fungus with a mainly flat (effused or resupinate) fruiting body.
Some areas are reflexed forming small caps on the edges.
A number of fruit bodies can fuse.
The sterile, sometimes wrinkled upper surface of the caps is grey-brown.
There may be concentric bands of browns on the cap and it may have radial grooves.
The cap surface and the white or pale edges have short white hairs.
The spore bearing layer (hymenium) is on the lower surface of the caps and the upper surface of the flat areas.
This brown layer has are no tubes or pores with the spores being formed in basidia cells in the hymenium.
Sometimes this surface is sterile with no basidia.
These surfaces can be smooth or wrinkled and they darken with age.
On old specimens the hymenium becomes wrinkled and when dry it cracks.
J.F.
