Osteina     Genus

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fertile surface usually a layer of vertical tubes, of which the mouths are visible as pores on the underside of the cap or shelf.
Fruiting bodies usually tougher or harder than the "normal" gilled mushrooms, being leathery, corky, or woody. But they can be quite tender while actively growing
Once grown, they do not decay easily, remaining on the substrate for months or years
They often grow on wood, although a few are terrestrial (even those are usually growing on buried wood)
Fruiting body is usually a flat shelf, or hoof-shaped, protruding directly from the substrate, although sometimes it may have a short stalk.
Some forms never grow away from the substrate at all, so that all that is visible of the fruiting body are the pores.
Sometimes the pores are so minute that the fertile surface seems solid, until you look closely

Growing on wood

Stipitoporus     Tribe Not fitting the other choices, fruiting body with well-developed stem

Links from Look-alikes Whiteoporus     Tribe Sessile cap entirely white to buff Pores concolorous or yellow or pale grey, sometimes darkening in age to grey or even black Sometimes with moss or algae growing on the cap (coloring it green)

Osteina     Genus     Donk

Diagnosis

• Flesh dense, heavy, drying bone-hard
  
• Stem very short, almost absent
  
• Fruiting bodies usually cestipose or imbricate

Narrow down your identification:

Cap up to 4" across; white to grey or to light brown
Pores 1-3 mm long; minute (3-5 per mm); white, drying yellowish
On coniferous wood and birch

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