FOMES APPLANATUS 127 



(Fig. 45). The number of its rings is 45. The average thickness of 

 its rings therefore just exceeds one-half of an inch. In this fungus, 

 owing to the distinctness of the rings on their exterior and owing 

 to their great depth, I do not doubt that each ring represents the 

 whole of the growth of the fruit-body for the year in which it was 

 formed. 



When the 45-year-old fruit-body just described was only six 

 years old, it must have had only six annual tube-rings and must 

 have resembled in form the 6-year-old fruit-body shown in Fig. 46 ; 

 and, when it was fifteen years old, it must have had fifteen annual 

 tube-rings and must have resembled in general form the less evenly 

 grown 15-year-old fruit-body shown in Fig. 47. 



The maximum age for certain species of Polyporeae, so far as 



onwards. Vide A. H. R. Buller, " The Fungus Lore of the Greeks and Romans," 

 a presidential address, Trans. Brit. Myc. Soc., vol. v, 1914, pp. 58-60. 



J. H. Faull has given us an interesting account of the fungus (" Fomes officinalis, 

 a Timber-destroying Fungus," Trans. Roy. Canadian Institute, Toronto, vol. xi, 

 1916, pp. 185-209, Figs. 1-30) in which he makes the following statements. A 

 fruit-body has the odour of fresh meal and an extremely bitter quinine-like taste. 

 Long before the recognition of F. officinalis by botanists in America, the fruit - 

 bodies were used by the early settlers in Ontario and Quebec for various purposes, 

 including the preparation of yeast for bread-making, and the plant was known to 

 them as the Pineapple Fungus (Pineapple tree, an obsolete English name for a 

 pine or coniferous tree ; pineapple originally meant a pine cone). The first scientific 

 record of the fungus in America appears to have been not earlier than 1886. There 

 is some evidence that the Indians knew of its medicinal value. The active principle 

 is a resinous substance agaricin ; and this, with other resins, constitutes up to 

 70 per cent, of the dry weight of the fruit-body. The resins are secreted in the 

 form of amorphous granules to a very slight extent on the mycelium, but in great 

 abundance on the hyphae of the sporophore. Quelet and certain other European 

 systematists have assumed that F. officinalis is a variety of Poly par us sulphur eus 

 or specifically very close to it. However, these two species are very distinct, differing 

 in : (1) size and branching of hyphae, (2) form, longevity, and content of sporophore, 

 (3) structure of sporophore, (4) size of spores, and (5) cultural characters. F. officinalis 

 causes a red heart-rot of conifers characterised by a removal of the cellulose, a fractur- 

 ing of the wood into rectangular masses, and the formation of niycelial sheets in 

 the crevices. Histologically the effects are similar to those caused by P. Schweinitzii. 

 It occurs on living and dead timber and is a wound parasite. In Canada it has been 

 found in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia ; and in the United States in Arizona. 

 California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan, and 

 Wyoming. In Europe it occurs on Larix europaea and L. sibirica ; and in North 

 America on Abies concolor, A. magnifica, A. grandis, Larix occidentalis, L. laricina, 

 Picea Engelmanni, P. sitchensis, Pinus lambertiana, P. murrayana, P. ponderosa, 

 P. Jeffreyi, P. strobus, P. monticola, Pseudotsuga taxifolia, Tsuga heterophylla, and 

 T. inert ensiana. 



