Chicken of the woods

Laetiporus sulphureus

Fomitopsidaceae

The sulfur shelf — a bright orange bracket that fries like chicken when young, and cramps when old, on the wrong tree, or in the wrong belly.

Wild edible when correctly identified, young, and from a known hardwood. Some hosts and old specimens cramp. Not a block crop.

Parts used: Young fruiting body, tender margin
Traditional notes: Kitchen (correctly identified, young, right host)
Habitat only: Saprophytic and weakly parasitic on standing or fallen hardwoods in temperate woods, summer to autumn. Habitat map, not a pin.

Pores, not gills. Sulfur yellow beneath. Growing on wood.
Young and flexible, or leave it.
If you are new, go with someone who is not.

Safety

Any orange bracket you cannot name Old crumbly shelves Some conifer and eucalyptus hosts

Lore

The English name is a cook’s hope. Italian pollo di bosco is the same joke. It has never really been farmed, which is why a shelf still feels like luck. The sulfur color is the field test the old books keep repeating because, for once, a mushroom is wearing a flag.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.