CEYLON FUNGI. 7 



it certainly does, as the pore surface seems to consist of 

 parallel lines with anastomoses here and there. 



There are several pieces of the fungus in Herb. Kew and 

 Herb. Peradeniya. In the type in Herb. Kew the specimen 

 is on fragments of coconut stem ; it forms a thick, chalky 

 layer, a miUimetre or a millimetre and a half in thickness, 

 which has cracked into more or less rectangular fragments, 

 and falls away from the substratum ; the surface is closely 

 covered with minute ridges, about 0-2 mm. apart, which 

 anastomose freely. One piece in Herb. Peradeniya is exactly 

 the same as that in Herb. Kew, but another is somewhat 

 different, and serves to explam the whole. The latter piece 

 is also on coconut wood, but the wood is covered with a sandy 

 layer up to 2*5 millimetres thick ; and the fungus forms over 

 this a very delicate basal layer, which bears short, angular 

 pores. 



There is no doubt that this last piece is a Poria, and that it 

 is part of the same fungus on the same substratum as the other 

 pieces. It happened to grow on a horizontal surface, but the 

 other pieces grew on vertical surfaces, and hence their pores 

 in an old, weathered state appear as lines. 



The explanation of the pecuHar characters of the specimen — 

 its chalky nature, separability from the substratum, fragility, 

 &c. — appears to be that it grew on coconut timber wliich had 

 been used in the construction of some building, and therefore 

 was covered with lime and mortar. The main mass of the 

 specimens is lime or mortar ; the fungus is only a thin super- 

 ficial layer. The fungus is clearly Polyporus interruptus, as 

 it was evidently regarded byThwaites, for he included it with 

 the specimens 652, to which Berkeley and Broome gave that 

 name. 



In the Fungi of Ceylon, Polyporus niphodes is enumerated 

 immediately before Polyporus interruptus. According to 

 the rules of priority, therefore, the former name should be 

 employed for this species. But seeing that the description 

 of Polyporus niphodes is based on a specimen which consists 

 of a mass of lime covered with weathered effete pores, and 

 is practically unrecognizable, it wotild seem more sensible 

 to retain the name Polyporus interruptus. 



