Summary:
Features include a brown to grayish black bracket-like or hoof-shaped fruitbody with a velvety brown growing margin, small brown pores, brown to rusty brown flesh, and white-streaked tubes. There is a Phellinus igniarius complex of 15 species worldwide corresponding to a well supported clade in DNA study (Zhou, L.-W.(1)). Six of these occur in North America: Phellinus alni, Phellinus betulinus, Phellinus lundellii, Phellinus nigricans, Phellinus pomaceoides, and Phellinus tremulae. Notably absent are A) Phellinus igniarius itself about which they say "The specimens studied by Gilbertson and Ryvarden (1987) might actually represent other members of the P. igniarius complex.", B) Phellinus laevigatus - they imply that North American collections may fall under Phellinus betulinus, and C) Phellinus pomaceus - they rename the North American collections in the study Phellinus pomaceoides. (Zhou, L.-W.(1)). Tom Volk and Diane Pleninger wrote about Phellinus igniarius (in a wide sense), "In northern North America, the ash of Phellinus igniarius conks was widely used with indigenous plants before tobacco arrived. The Denaina, an Athabascan Indian people of the Alaskan interior, chewed a mixture of P. igniarius ash and balsam poplar bark in pre-contact times. Collections in Canadian and US museums show that P. igniarius was used with tobacco by the Micmac of Nova Scotia, Inuit of Labrador, Blackfoot of the North American Plains and Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest. This specific basidiocarp was selected and preferred above all other sources of ash. The reason for this is its high pH." (Volk).

Chemical Reactions:
cap tissue blackens in KOH (Arora)

Odor:
mushroomy (Phillips)

Taste:
sour or bitter (Arora)

Microscopic:
spores 5-6.5 x 4.5-6 microns, broadly oval to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid, colorless; basidia 4-spored, 9-10 x 6-7 microns, broadly clavate, simple-septate at base; setae abundant to rare, 14-17 x 4-6 microns, ventricose to subulate [awl-shaped], core setae present in some specimens, up to 15 microns wide, irregularly lobed and branched, thick-walled; hyphae of context of 2 types: 1) 2-5 microns wide, "brown in KOH, thick-walled, distinct, with rare branching, aseptate", 2) 2-3 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled with occasional simple septa, very indistinct; hyphae of trama similar, 2-3 microns wide, (Gilbertson), spores 5.0-6.5 x 4.5-6 microns, broadly oval to nearly round, walls thick and colorless; generative hyphae indistinct, skeletal hyphae 2-5 microns wide, walls brown and thick; setae hymenial, 12-25 x 4-9 microns, "ventricose to subulate", (Ginns(28)), spores 5-7 x 4-6 microns, round or nearly round, smooth, (Arora), spores 5-7 x 4-6 microns, nearly round, smooth, colorless, slightly thick-walled, (Breitenbach)

Spore Deposit:
whitish (Arora)

Notes:
Phellinus igniarius group has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, MB, NT, NB, NF, NS, ON, PE, PQ, SK, YT, AK, AR, CA, CO, CT, IA, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NH, NY, OH, PA, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY, (Gilbertson), and Europe, Asia, and Africa, (Breitenbach).

EDIBILITY

no (Arora)