Order Hymenomtcetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XXXI. 



POLYPORUS HISPIDUS, 5*r^. 



Hispid Folyjjorus. 



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

 simple dissepiments. Name fi'om ttoXv?, many and rrdpos, a pore, in allusion to the many pores of the HjTnenium. 



Spec. Char. P. hispidus. Pileus a foot or more across, about four inches thick, pulvdnate, dimidiate, but 

 occasionally with an obsolete knob-like stem, often imbricated, forming very large masses. The upper sm-faee 

 generally shaggy or hispid, but sometimes almost smooth and cracking. Colour varying from yeUow to rich red, 

 brown, or black. Pores very minute, at fii'st pallid, then yellow, fringed. Substance fleshy, but spongy, elastic and 

 fibrous, red, yellow, or brown-red. Tubes, at their greatest depth, an inch long, the same colour as the flesh. 

 Spores yellow. 



PoLYPORUS hispidus, Fries, Berkeley, Greville. 

 Boletus hispidus, Bulliard, Bolton, TTitherin-g. 



velutinus, Sowerby, Witliering. 



vdlosus, Hudson, Witliering. 



spongiosus, Lightfoot, Witliering. 



Halt. On trunks of various trees, Apple, Ash, Elm, &c. ; summer and autumn. Annual. 



The accompanjing plate represents Polijporas kisjiidns in an aged state, being Boletus spongiosus of 

 Lightfoot and Woodward, " very elegant when young, turning quite black when old," when it is scarcely 

 recognizable for the same fungus, which decked in orange and crimson plush or velvet, soft, elastic, and 

 losing its delicate hues and texture with the slightest touch, suggested one of the gayest drawings in our 

 Mycological Portfoho. In the state now depicted we also see Boletus hispidus of Bolton, given by Withering 

 in his section " tubes red," the yellow spores having been long shed, and the dcKcate fringes of the pores 

 obliterated. Hardened and consoUdated by age, the substance is tough and fibrous, (not smooth and corky,) 

 when divided, and shrinks into much smaller dimensions than it possessed in the youthful state. Tliis 

 elderly example grew high upon an Ash, and enclosed the Ivy in its increasing volume ; but so easy and 

 gentle is the mamier in which this is performed, that leaves and tender shoots are scarcely displaced, but 

 remain green and flourishing, when we should have expected to find them suffocated in a deadly embrace. 

 Many of the Tolyporus tribe have this habit as well as B. Jtispidus, so that it is not in any way distinctive. 

 The Ash according to our experience is the favourite habitat or nurse of the Tungus ; where a limb has 

 decayed in an otherwise flourishing tree, it may be found growing, generally at some feet from the earth, 

 often as much as twenty or tliirty. It is from the inspection of specimens differing so much in condition. 



