Alder Bracket - Inonotus radiatus

It is apricot to rusty brown coloured with slightly sunken reddish droplets near the margin when young, becoming browner, and eventually almost black with age. It has a yellow/white margin when young and rusty brown tubes. It is one of the smaller brackets and fruitbodies are nearly always tiered and also tend to merge one with another. The cap surface is finely velvety at first, becoming smoother with warty lumps and radial wrinkles.

Nearly always on dead or dying Alders and usually above head height.

Annual brackets persist in blackened form throughout the year, but new young brackets generally appear in early to mid summer and release their spores during late summer and autumn.

Widespread in Britain.

Status in Leicestershire and Rutland not known.