Mushrooms on Black Locust safe to eat?

I have a few BL trees (somewhere around 30 years old) in my backyard, with what I believe are hardened/petrified Reishi mushrooms growing several places on them.

I apologize for not having done my research before asking these questions, but....

1) Is there any (human) use for a super-hard Reishi mushroom?
2) I heard someone say anything growing off of a BL tree is possibly unsafe for consumption. True/untrue?

Thanks!

The hard stuff could be used for medicinal tinktures or teas but first a positive identification is required before use.

If identifying is not possible a use as tinder or other crafting could be tried.

At the very least let them be for the aesthetic value - some things I just file under "looks cool"

not reishi but old artist conk. too old for tea.

hey david,

these mushrooms grow on black locust all my area too! they are a phellinus species. used by different first nations people as an ideal source of timber, they can hold embers for a long ass time. i feel like i've read a bit about their use as a medicinal incense also by first nations people, and about their ash being mixed with tobacco as a kind of snuff. since they're a polypore, the living white part on the underneath of the mushroom likely has some medicinal compounds but i don't think that's been studied too much. you could check this video if you wanna see someone using a similar polypore as a prehistoric lighter lol

i always thought they gotta be pretty powerful cuz they rot something nothing else can. haven't played around with it too much but i've seen springtails (tiny soil critters) eating em out in the deep woods during the snow melt so i always kind of played with the idea that they might be a really nice soil builder. if the underside has turned brown or black the mushroom's dead and i wouldn't feel too bad about burning it or composting it if that strikes your fancy. if it's white on the underside it's still living and sending out spores so i personally would let it do its thing!

as far as not eating something growing out of black locust, i've heard that too but paul stamets mentions growing reishi out of black locust and says nothing about that so idk?

hope you're having fun exploring with fungi!

Don't know what their called but I know you can use them for wood burning my dad is an artist he used to use those all the time I will find out how he harvested and cured them and post it on a thread if anyone is interested