chicken of the woods

noun phrase

variants or chicken-of-the-woods

: an edible bracket fungus (Laetiporus sulphureus) of North America and Europe that forms thick, fleshy, shelflike fruiting bodies (as on tree trunks) which are usually bright orange above and sulfur yellow below

Realistically, however, a 56-pound chicken of the woods is old and tough. The fungus is only appetizing when it is young and tender, but even then, it is usually big.

—Nina Rao

I've eaten chicken-of-the-woods, a bright orange fungus I knocked off a rotting log.

—Tina Kelley

called also chicken mushroom, sulfur shelf

Word History

First Known Use

1960, in the meaning defined above