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Cinnabar polypore on oak
Pycnoporus cinnabarinus Species
Angles captured. Mid-range on the branch, and a close view of the bracket.
Morphology
Two or three fused brackets, each 3–5 cm across, semicircular, intensely uniform orange-red on the upper surface, matte and finely felted, margin blunt. Thin and corky in section. Attached broadly to the branch with no stipe.
Habitat & substrate
On a fallen, partly barkless oak branch lying in the leaf litter, oak seedlings and grass around it. Saprotrophic white-rot on hardwood.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
Little else in the northeast is this colour. Trametes cinnabarina is a synonym. Young Laetiporus is far larger, thicker and grows in shelving masses.
To confirm this identification
Nothing essential — confirming that the pore surface is the same red-orange as the top would close it completely.
Notes
One of only two confident species-level calls in this batch.
Found at Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary, Worcester, MA on Saturday, 1 August 2026 at 18:58. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.
Others in this group
Perennial polypore on an oak trunkGanoderma sp. · Oct 10Moderate
Small zoned bracketTrametes sp. · Jul 31Moderate–high
Orange-gilled bracket on a logTapinella or Phyllotopsis · Aug 6Moderate
Brown cap on a birch logUnidentified · Aug 6Low
Zoned brackets on rockTrametes or Stereum · Aug 6Moderate
Birch polyporeFomitopsis betulina · Aug 6High
Cinnabar polypore on a stickPycnoporus cinnabarinus · Aug 6High
Bracket colony among fernsTrametes or Stereum · Aug 8Low–moderate