About this fungus
Orange Tooth is a fungus in the Bankeraceae family. Its habitat and field characteristics are summarised below.
A tough orange to rusty-red tooth fungus with a pale whitish or pinkish growing margin. The cap is often deeply pitted, ridged or knobbly, while the stem and lower flesh retain orange tones even as the upper cap browns.
What to check
Look beneath for crowded short spines rather than gills or pores. They begin whitish and become dingy or pale orange-brown. A section shows paler upper flesh above a corky orange-brown lower layer, and the stem is orange to rusty-red. The rough relief-like cap surface is more useful than orange colour alone.
Variation
Young fruit bodies can be bright orange with a pale edge and occasional amber droplets. Older caps become duller brown, wrinkled and harder to separate from other Hydnellum, although orange usually persists in the lower stem or section.
Lookalikes
Blue Tooth, Hydnellum caeruleum, has a blue young margin and blue zones above an orange base. Other orange Hydnellum species differ in spine, margin and flesh colours and may need microscopy. Bracket-like polypores have pores rather than teeth.
Habitat and range
Ectomycorrhizal mainly with conifers, including pine, hemlock, fir and spruce in different regions, with occasional hardwood reports. It fruits from woodland soil alone or in groups, sometimes with neighbouring caps fused.
Food safety
Inedible.
Photographs
Leah Bendlin / CC BY-SA 3.0