Hey @dber,
Nice post and neatly explained how the pores of some polypores develop tooth-like pores that can be deceiving.
The pores of those beautiful bracket fungi are not brownish enough to be Trametes villosa and the algae growing on top of the fruiting bodies points towards it most likely being Cerrena unicolor, which also develops tooth-like pores with age.
What do you think?
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I think you may be right. But looking at Kuo's page along with the photos he has up almost convinced me otherwise. He lists the caps as 3 to 10 cm in width, when most of the caos I saw were under 3cm. Plus the photos appear to show some of the caps as fairly thick, compared to the very thin caps I'd found. I want to say only a couple of mm at most, but this really highlights my need for a more accurate metric ruler...
But the algae thing seemed spot on, and many of the characterisics seemed to match - then I checked out Messiah College's page on the species, and they extend the cap range from .5 to 10, and have pictures which are pretty much totally identical to what I saw.
However, to devils advocate for T.villosa, Kuo indicates the pores go from white to "a little brown", and the photos he has up do show a hint of green, as do some other dubiously sourced photos on the internet. Also the description of the flesh being "insubstantial" better aligns with the mushrooms I found.
In all, I'm honestly not sure. But I feel like based on the descriptions I've seen, they are both strong contenders, so I'm definitely adding Cerrena unicolor to the title.
Involvement like this is why I really like the "random finds" posts. :)
Ohh, but the pores look a little more convincing for Cerrena unicolor. The color doesn't seem as dispositive as the physical structures.
I say that because, althoughI did notice many more pictures on the internet for T. villosa depicting a mushroom with a much darker pore surface, that didnt line up with Kuos descriptions or photos, which are basically the only detailed resource I found for the species.