Caps numerous, with irregular, bizarre shapes, gibbous, horizontally protruding, lying one upon the other, shelflike, 20-40 centimeters in all; with the margins undulate and divided into lobes by deep grooves; confluent at the base in a single mass, sometimes in a single, short trunk, whitish and then yellowish. The upper part is yellow, rosy yellow, or lemon yellow; but of a beautiful rosy color in the variety miniatus (1), which grows in the Far East; fading with age, but becoming stained with brownish yellow. The lower part is covered with small pores, first round, then angular, sulfur yellow, excluding dewy, yellowish droplets. When the spores are ripe, they cover with a thick powder, first yellow, then white, the caps on which they fall. Flesh thick, soft, juicy, yellowish; with agreeable odor and acidulous flavor; then it becomes light, hard, brittle, and exhales a sweet smell. It grows from spring to autumn on the trunks of latifoliate trees, also on fruit trees, which it erodes and causes to fall; found less frequently on the trunks of conifers or on felled trunks. Edible when still unripe.

Only the margin is yellow in Trametes odorata or Osmoporus odoratus, not edible, which can be found all year round on larches and firs, in the mountains, but which grows only in humid weather: cap of irregular shape, 6-14 cm, sometimes multiple, rusty, rugose, hairy, with yellow margin sometimes very showy; pores angular, cinnamon colored; tubules long, furfuraceous; flesh hard, rusty, with persistent odor of anise, therefore the denomination odorata; spores white, then brown.