between wliicli and velvet tlie texture varies. In any of the stages above described tlie development of the 

 plant may be checked, so as never to attain its perfect state ; sudden frost may arrest the swelling of the 

 substance, and sudden warmth and moisture accelerate it, these changes affecting the configuration, as much 

 as absence of hght, or bright sunshine, do the colouring, so that a precise description cannot be given of an 

 iudi\'idual which wears such changeable apparel. Pair damsels, however, retain the same face, whether the 

 last gay fashion displays its contour, or the cottage bonnet conceals it, and thus, although momentarily 

 puzzled by a fanciful change of costume, we may recognize our pretty friend P. versicolor under it. On the 

 other hand, a rival T/telepAora or Badalia, 



" In velvet mantle bound with minever", 



may be accosted by mistake,but the features differ too much for any but cursory error ; that is to say, quitting 

 our figurative exempUfication, Thelephoras, which in their imbricated masses and general growth, resemble 

 this Polyporm, have not pores, but a smooth hymenium, and Bxdalia unicolor, at first sight to be taken for 

 a faded specimen of it, has a minutely and beautifully labyrinthine under-surface, whence its name, that 

 cunning workman Daedalus suggesting the application. 



The family Polyponts is very extensive, and admits of being arranged in various natural sections, 

 according to distinctive characters, independent of the one great feature common to aU its members, the 

 pored hymenium. Our present subject, having "the pileus juiceless and firm, consisting of a thin fibrous 

 cuticle heterogeneous as well from the hymenium as fi'om the covering of the pileus ", belongs to the section 

 Inodermei of Fries, and sub-division Coriacei wliicli are " coriaceous, generally villous and concentrically 

 furrowed, and are commonly banded with zones of another colour ", in a dry state they endure as if preserved 

 for a Hortus Siccus, but are only annual in growth. In determining any species the student must remember, 

 that specimens imperfect from youth, or distorted by growing in pecuhar positions, or changed by the decay 

 of age, may appear not only unlike the genuine type of the plant, but like some other. From the laceration 

 of the pores in age, and the disposition of individuals unfairly compressed, to push into wider space, in order 

 to expand a pileus, the present subject is often perplexing ; Fries complains of its sporting in every way, and 

 appearing under innumerable forms so that "you might easily divide it into a hundred species having no 

 real existence"; he is, however, speaking of it as brought "from all parts of the world" including the 

 tropics, in England it wUl be tolerably safe to refer a decidedly coriaceous Tolyporus, with white or cream- 

 coloured pores to " Versicolor" but not to let examination stop at that reference, a little trouble in verifi- 

 cation is always advisable, and the student cannot attend too closely to minute differences, although, as in 

 this case, they may not be of sufficient importance to establish a new species. Of the beauty of P. versicolor 

 there can be no doubt, of its utOity we know nothing, that is probably confined to its power of ehciting the 

 principles of innocent and ornamental life from decaying wood, which instead of its own green leaves becomes 

 adorned with flourisliing growths of another kind. It furnishes a comfortable roof, and food, to various 

 insects, which eat away the pores entirely, in some cases. 



