Phlebia subceracea (A crust fungi)

The fruit body consists of fairly densely packed spines growing from a flat sheet. The spines are 1 to 2 millimetres long, have rounded apices and the whole fruitbody is golden yellow.

This fungus is found in a variety of habitats, usually on the underside of dead wood that is lying on the ground. You see it in patches of various sizes (depending on how long a fruit body has been developing) and occasionally different fruit bodies may merge to produce a composite that covers a large area on the wood.    

The spines bear  numerous very short, colourless bristles (or cystidioles, to be technical) and you may see these with a low power microscope or via a macro lens on a camera.

The first description of this species (as Acia subceracea) was published in the Wakefield paper listed below and was based on material collected in South Australia. In 1953 it became a species of Myoacia and in 2003  was moved to Phlebia.

Look-alikes

The colour, rounded spine apices and the fact that this fungus grows flat on the wood, make this species easy to recognize. There are other species with pointed yellow spines and similarly flat fruit bodies or with rounded yellow spines but shelf-like fruit bodies.    

References

Wakefield, E.M., 1930, Australian resupinate hydnaceae, Transactions and Proceedings of the  Royal Society of South Australia,  54, 155-158.