oe. —. Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
when old; margin usually conspicuous, soft, separable, flocculent, 
sterile, white or tinged with violet, byssoid, sometimes forming 
conspicuous branched rhizomorphic stands which may extend into | 
the interstices of the substratum; subiculum thin, separable, white, 
with a distinct violet color when fresh, color reflecting through rifts 
in the pores or showing at their junction with the sterile margin; 
pores formed by indentation of a common fertile surface, at first 
circular, punctiform, later more definitely defined becoming angular or 
oblique, shallow, 2-4 per mm., whitish when young, becoming 
yellowish or cream color when mature; folds thin; edges entire, 
becoming uneven or dentate in some specimens; basidia four-spored, 
clavate 2.5-4 X 10-15 u, varying in size, several originating from a 
common base, occasionally branched continuous over the edges of the 
folds until separated by fracture; spores hyaline, entire, broadly or 
oblong elliptical, sometimes flattened on one side, average (50) 1.2- 
2 X 3-4.2 u; encrusted cystidia near the edges of the folds, some- 
times absent; tramal hyphae extensively branched, frequently at right 
angles, conspicuously septate, rarely nodose-septate, loosely inter- 
woven but more compact in a narrow subhymenial zone, conspicuously 
encrusted when mature, 3-4 y, in diameter; subicular hyphae occasion- 
ally encrusted next the substratum, conspicuously septate, occasion- 
ally with pseudo-clamp connections, 3-6 y, in diameter. 
SUBSTRATA: On wood and bark of Pinus, Juniperus, Picea, Tsuga, 
Taxus, Quercus ‘and Acer. The species does not show any marked 
proclivity for coniferous or frondose wood. The species has been found 
rotting old lumber piles. Decay, white or light yellow, soft and 
spongy; in later stages the wood becomes fibrillose shrinking un- 
equally so that minute pit-like cavities are discernible. This is 
more pronounced in coniferous wood. 
Ellis collected this species in abundance on pine boards and other 
substrata at Newfield, N. J., and judging from his correspondence 
now preserved at the New York Botanical Garden, he was much 
interested in its determination. Some of this material was referred 
by Ellis to Cooke with the inquiry whether it was Polyporus tenellus 
Berk. € Cke. Cooke definitely stated “that called P. tenellus must 
surely be Polyporus farinellus Fr." This view was concurred in by 
Ellis, who remarks that his “opinion is based on an examination of 
the original specimen of P. tenellus in my herbarium No. 1825.” 
This was, of course, true, for the latter, but authentic material of P. 
farinellus represents an entirely different species. Ellis goes on to 
say: "As near as I can remember, No. 1825 was violet color when 
fresh; No. 1828, which appears to be the same, was certainly so." 
Ellis repeatedly refers to the violet color of his specimens. An 
unnumbered specimen on Quercus in Herb. N. Y. Bot. Gard., he 
