Cap: greyish fawn becoming whitish when dry, fan or kidney-shaped, often lobed and covered in close-set hairs and with incurved margin.
Stem: absent or the cap simply narrows into a stem-like bump.
Gills: replaced by a series of grey-brown plates which when dry appear as if to split longitudinally and their edges roll back.
Flesh: brownish but drying whitish.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: medium sized, oblong, hyaline under the microscope, not blueing in solutions containing iodine and 6-7 × 2-5 µm in size.
Facial and marginal cystidia: absent.
Habitat & Distribution: Grows on fallen branches, trunks, dead wood, etc.
General Information: Easily recognised by the ‘gills’ radiating from a point and becoming ‘split’ when dry. Specimens of Schizophyllum sealed by A. H. R. Buller in a tube in 1911 have been shown on remoistening to unroll their gills and shed variable spores, after 521⁄2 years—probably a world record! The split-gill is a rather unique British fungus which appears to be much more closely related to the polypores than to the agarics—although it has for a long time been associated with the Oyster mushroom ([p. 74]). In fact, the splitting gills are two adjacent shallow dishes with spores produced on their inner surfaces. The cups separate on drying and therefore only superficially resemble gills splitting down the centre.
Another fungus which can also be associated with the idea of cups is Fistulina hepatica Fries ‘the Beef-steak fungus’. This fungus is a polypore in the widest sense. It may grow up to 250 mm wide and is reddish-brown or liver-coloured with reddish tubes and pale flesh-coloured pores; the tubes although free are aggregated together and can be easily separated individually with the fingers. This fungus is edible although very strong in taste, it produces a serious decay of oaks.