While hiking in a California forest in search of salamanders, this brightly colored mushroom caught my eye. The caps have concentric color zones ranging from bright orange to reddish-brown, fading to cream with age.
This saprophytic (feeding on dead and decaying organic matter) species has thin, leathery, shelf-like fruiting bodies that grow on dead or decaying wood. It grows densely, often from gaps in bark, and can fuse laterally, sometimes hosting algae or being parasitized by jelly fungi (as was the case here, with Witches’ Butter).
Crowded Parchment are characterized by thin, tough, leathery caps that often overlap and fuse into tangled masses, resembling dried parchment or ruffled petticoats on wood.
This fungus helps to decompose dead hardwoods such as oak, beech, and maple, and plays a key role in breaking down lignin and recycling nutrients in forest ecosystems. Unlike many shelf fungi, the underside is smooth, lacking gills or pores, which is a key identification feature.
This was a welcome and colorful find on an otherwise rainy day in California.