Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XXIV. 



POLYPORUS VERSICOLOR, zi..^.^. 



Parti-coloured Polygons. 



Gen. Cliar. Hymeuium concrete with the substance of the pileus, consisting of sub-rotund pores with thin 

 simple dissepiments. Name from noKin, many and nopos, a, pore, in allusion to the many pores of the Hymeuium. 



Spec. Char. Polyporus veksicolcr. Variable ; sometimes quite resupinate, or with the margins reflexed ; 

 more generally dimidiate and densely imbricated, occasionally spuriously stipitate ; pilei more or less lobed, coria- 

 ceous, villous, with various coloured more or less shining, regular concentric zones ; generally smooth, but sometimes 

 the whole surface is villous and the zones mere depressions. Pores round, white, or cream-coloured in age, lacerated. 

 The whole plant rigid when dry, in which state it does not easily decay, although the growth is tridy annual. 

 Polyporus versicolor, 'Fries, Berkeley, Greville. 

 Boletus versicolor, Zinn., Bull., Sow., With. 



Hah. On stumps, raOs, stakes &c. ; extremely common. 



Although in the course of this work it may be desirable that any new or rare Fungus should be portrayed 

 for the experienced Mycologist, it is also necessary that the student beginning his " first steps ", should have 

 some simple and famihar examples given of each class, and therefore Polyporus versicolor is selected for the 

 present illustration ; it is easily met with, for every httle plot of out-door premises affords specimens ; if we 

 samiter into the kitchen garden, the espalier or raspberry stakes probably have ruffles of it ; the rustic treUis, 

 the posts that support the bench, the very water-butt in the dingy town back-yard, may be adorned with an 

 elegant congeries of its pileuses, fastened down and contracted at one edge, like striped velvet ribbon, plaited 

 in scallops. 



In its first stage this Eungus appears as circular white discs, depressed in the centre, which is huffish, 

 and there minute pores like pin-holes soon develope themselves ; ia this state it increases to about an inch in 

 diameter, the margin of the disc remaining smooth and firm, and the whole central surface consisting of 

 shallow pores, the mider side being tightly affixed to the wood beneath; this condition, which is called 

 resupinate, because the plant is lying on its back, or upside down, it makes an eifort to quit, and to assume 

 the regular character of a pileated Fungus ; risiag therefore on one side it becomes what is termed dimidiate, 

 or displaying half a pileus, and idtimately more or less free, even spuriously stipitate, this appearance of a 

 stem being given by a prolonged mass of the pored formation, not by fibres composing a true stalk. When, 

 as generally happens, a row of young plants is formed longitudinally upon the wood, they ultimately reflex 

 over one another, becoming tiled or imbricated, while the folds of each pileus reflect the light like shot satin. 



