94 Polyporotd Fungt. [ ZOE. 
Through Strobilomyces, whose habit, combined with structural 
characters, is perhaps sufficient to keep it distinct, Polyporus passes 
to Boletus, and from Boletus there is a gradual connection through 
Boletinus, which stands on uncertain footing, to Paxillus, another 
genus of Agarics. Through Merulius with fold-like pores still an- 
other passage is made to the Agarics in the direction of Cantharel- 
lus. Sufficient has been said to verify the assertion of Fries, that 
the family is intermediate between the Agarics and the Hydnei. 
A few conclusions may be drawn from the preliminary survey: 
1. Among the Polyporei at least, Gcethe’s statement that species. 
are simply creations of the text-books, finds abundant illustration 
and warrant. 
2. Generic and family limits are also exceedingly vague. Many 
of the genera are simply form-genera, and there is an amazing 
variety of connecting forms. 
3. Several of the genera of Polyporei, as commonly accepted, 
have no rational basis on which to stand. From the genus Poly- 
porus thirty genera could easily be formed with as valid reason as 
several that now exist. When characters are so poorly defined it 
seems a more rational proceeding to leave forms in few large genera __ 
than to establish new genera on characters that would ordinarily be _ 
regarded as merely specific. In regard to some of these genera we 
will specify changes: 
(a) Trametes, with “trama descending between the pores,”’ 
hangs on an exceedingly slender thread and had better be reunited 
with Polyporous. Though an error, it is perhaps significant that 
Saccardo describes Polyporus cinnabarinus under both Polyporus 
and Trametes’. 
(b) Gleoporus, with ‘gelatinous hymenium,” has no more rea- 
son to be separated from Polyporous than P. ductdus has to be 
erected into a genus because it has a varnished skin?. It had best 
be returned to its original fold unless the South American forms. 
reveal something more unlike Polyporus than has yet been discov- 
ered in the United States. 
(c) Favolus, with “large angular pores,’’ cannot stand as a ge- 
nus if Polyporus squamosus, P. lentus, P. arculartus, and their allies, 
'Sylloge Fungorum, vi, 245, 353. 
2Cf. Karsten Joc; cit. 
