Fleshy, small to very large agaric, growing on wood, with a white, cream to yellow, pale pink or lilac to lilac grey spore print. Pileus white, pale, yellow, brown, red or pink, green, purple or grey, smooth, finely tomentose or radially fibrillose, viscid or not. Lamellae adnate, subdecurrent or decurrent. Stipe excentric, lateral or absent, rarely central. Partial veil remnants absent. Spores typically cylindrical to bacilliform (although oblong to ellipsoid in the purple to olive P. purpureo-olivaceus), hyaline, non-amyloid, smooth; germ pore absent. Cheilocystidia present or absent, although often difficult to locate, sometimes with a capitate apex (occasionally also with an adhering globule, but the cheilocystidia rarely can be considered gloeosphex, with an hour-glass apex). Lamellar trama regular or interwoven. Context either monomitic (with thin- or thick-walled generative hyphae) or dimitic, with skeletal hyphae. Pileipellis a cutis or a trichoderm. Clamp connections present.

Most similar to the luminous Omphalotus, but that usually has a dark yellowish, brown or purple pileus centre, and broadly ellipsoid rather than cylindrical spores. Panus differs by the radiate lamellar trama and ellipsoid spores; moreover, the fruit-body is tough in texture and the stipe is usually central, the pileus surface is often hispid or fibrillose, the context is always dimitic and thick-walled cystidia are often present. Pleurotus eugrammus lacks cheilocystidia, is apparently luminous and has nodulose outgrowths on the pileipellis hyphae. Pleurotus giganteus has a partial veil and radiate lamellar trama. Pleurotus tuber-regium usually has a sclerotium.

Among other pale-spored agarics growing on wood that can have pleurotoid fruit-bodies (with the stipe lateral or absent), the following genera can be distinguished: Anthracophyllum has rich orange-brown lamellae and the context trama is green in KOH; Arrhenia has small fruit-bodies, without thick-walled context hyphae; Campanella has widely spaced lamellae and the pileipellis hyphae are nodulose; Chaetocalathus has long hairs on the pileus and dextrinoid spores; Cheimonophyllum is small, pure white and has globose to subglobose spores; Clitocybe semiocculta has broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid spores and lacks cheilocystidia; Conchomyces has ornamented spores; Hohenbuehelia is rubbery in texture and always has gloeosphex cystidia and thick-walled hymenial cystidia that are capped with crystals; Lentinellus has serrate lamellae edges and ornamented, amyloid spores; Lentinus is rarely pleurotoid, and has a dimitic context with skeleto-ligative hyphae; Marasmiellus affixus has small, pale fruit-bodies with a very strong odour and grows in association with an algal mat; Panellus longinquus and P. stipticus have amyloid spores; P. ligulatus has small, orange to pinkish brown, spathulate fruit-bodies and gloeosphex cystidia; Resupinatus has small, greyish fruit-bodies with subglobose to ellipsoid spores and the pileus surface hyphae are nodulose; and Schizophyllum has lamellae that are split along the length of the lamella edge. All of Gloeophyllum, Lenzites and Trametes elegans are very tough in texture.

About ten species: Pleurotus australis, P. djamor (= P. flabellatus), P. malleeanus, P. cf. opuntiae, P. ostreatus, P. pulmonarius, P. purpureo-olivaceus (= P. rattenburyi). Three other species are keyed out separately: Pleurotus tuber-regium (= Panus, = Lentinus) usually has a sclerotium; Pleurotus eugrammus was previously placed in a separate genus Nothopanus; and Pleurotus giganteus has a partial veil and radiate lamellar trama.

A number of other species have been recorded but need confirmation; some are known only from the type specimen and are likely to belong in other pleurotoid genera.

Pleurotus subgenus Lentodiopsis, with a veil and a dimitic hyphal system, has not been reported from Australia, although it occurs in New Zealand.

All States and Territories.

In native forests, including cool-temperate rainforest. P. australis is especially frequent in coastal habitats.

On wood.

Saprotrophic (white rot). In addition, species of Pleurotus produce tiny droplets on hyphae in culture, and these are toxic to nematodes. Fungal hyphae grow into and digest the inactivated nematodes.

Bougher, N.L. (2009a), Fungi of the Perth region and beyond: a self-managed field book, Western Australian Naturalists' Club (Inc.), Perth. [Description and Illustration of P. australis]

Bougher, N. & Syme, K. (1998), Fungi of Southern Australia. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands. [Description, Illustration and Microcharacters of P. australis]

Corner, E.J.H. (1981), The agaric genera Lentinus, Panus and Pleurotus with particular reference to Malaysian species, Beih. Nova Hedwigia 69: 1–169. [Description and Microcharacters of P. australis, P. djamor and P. ostreatus, along with Key to Malaysian species]

Fuhrer, B. (2005), A Field Guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books, Hawthorn. [Description and Illustration of P. purpureo-olivaceua]

Grey, P. & Grey, E. (2005), Fungi Down Under. Fungimap, South Yarra. [Description, Illustration and Map for P. australis]

Grgurinovic, C.A. (1997a), Larger Fungi of South Australia. The Botanic Gardens of Adelaide and State Herbarium and The Flora and Fauna of South Australia Handbooks Committee, Adelaide. [Description and Microcharacters of P. australis, P. ostreatus and P. malleeanus, with Key to species]

Guzmán, G., Montoya, L., Salmones, D. & Bandala, V.M. (1993), Studies of the genus Pleurotus (Basidiomycotina), II. P. djamour in Mexico and in other Latin-American countries, taxonomic confusions, distribution and semi-industrial culture, Cryptog. Bot. 3: 213–220. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of P. djamor]

Hood, I.A. (2003), An Introduction to Fungi on Wood in Queensland. University of New England, School of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources Management, Armidale. [Description and B&W Illustration of P. cf. opuntiae]

McCann, I.R. (2003), Australian Fungi Illustrated. Macdown Productions, Vermont. [Illustration of P. purpureo-olivaceus]

Nicholl, D.B.G. & Petersen, R.H. (2000), Phenetic plasticity in Pleurotus djamor, Mycotaxon 76: 17–37. [Description of P. djamor]

Pegler, D.N. (1983c), Agaric flora of the Lesser Antilles, Kew Bull., Addit. Ser. 9: 1–668. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of P. djamor (as P. flabellatus)]

Pegler, D.N. (1986), Agaric flora of Sri Lanka, Kew Bull., Addit. Ser. 12: 1–519. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of P. djamor]

Pegler, D.N. (1997), The Larger Fungi of Borneo. Natural History Publications, Kota Kinabalu. [Illustration of P. djamor from Borneo]

Segedin, B.P., Buchanan, P.K. & Wilkie, J.P. (1995), Studies in the Agaricales of New Zealand: new species, new records and renamed species of Pleurotus (Pleurotaceae), Austral. Syst. Bot. 8: 453–482. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of P. australis, P. pulmonarius and P. purpureo-olivaceus, and Key to the six species from New Zealand]

Young, A.M. (2005b), A Field Guide to the Fungi of Australia. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney. [Description and B&W Illustration of P. ostreatus]

Zervakis, G. & Balis, C. (1996), A pluralistic approach in the study of Pleurotus species with emphasis on compatibility and physiology of the European morphotaxa, Mycol. Res. 100: 717–731. [Description of P. ostreatus and P. pulmonarius]