Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate LXXXII. 



POLYPORUS GIGANTEUS, Persoon. 



Giant Polyporus. 



Gen. Char. Hymenium concrete with the substance of the pileus, consisting of sub-rotund pores, with thin 

 simple dissepiments. 



Sjpec. Char. P. giganteus. In large tufts from one foot to four feet across, about a foot high, composed of 

 imbricated pileuses proceeding fi'om a common root, but not forming a compound stem as in P. intybaceus, dimidiate, 

 depressed behind, scarcely branched, but often confluent by lateral lobes, " connately ramose " (Fries,) fleshy, flexible, 

 in age, flaccid if moist, rigid if dry ; the smface irregularly zoned, rigid, rivulose ; pale ash-colour granulated with 

 minute brown flocci, or yellowish-buff variegated with rich red-brown ; turning grey-black where bruised, the whole 

 plant black in decay. Pores extremely minute, cream-white or lemon-yellow, afterwards ash-grey with a tawny 

 shade ; tubes at first shallow, then varying according to their position, from a line to a quarter of an inch deep. 

 Substance of the mature plant quite juiceless, consisting of white cotton-like fibres proceeding from the base of the 

 frond, each thread terminating in a tube which it brings with it when torn longitudinally. Spores pale, ochraceons. 

 Polyporus giganteus, Fries, Berkeley. 



Boletus Persoon. 



imbricatus, Sowerby. 



frondosus. Withering. 



Hah. On stumps of felled trees of various species. Rare. Autumn. 



The group of this splendid fungus, of wliich the plate represeuts a very small portiou, was first 

 observed at Hayes in 1847, recurring in 1848 on the stump of an acacia, buried in the turf. The ground 

 colour of the plant was delicate ochraceous-yellow, and the rigid velvet pile with which the upper side of 

 each pileus is variegated was rich red-brown ; where the lower stem-like portions were screened by the grass, 

 they remained white. 



On the roots of a Beech in the gardens at Stourhead in Wilts, the seat of Sir R. H. Hoare, this same 

 Polyporus appeared for several years successively ; the drawing made there in 1843 looks hke a totally 

 different thing /living specimens, however, proved the two varieties to be botanically identical;' the Wiltshire 

 fungus having white or pallid greyish-brown for the ground hue instead of yellow ; umber-brown varie- 

 gations instead of rich red tawny-brown, and the markings being in a less regularly zoned pattern. Perhaps 

 the wood on which it grows influences the colour ; but mere colour as we often repeat, is a fallacious 

 quality. In age this Polyporus is really unlike itself, as it was seen in vigorous maturity ; the minute rigid 

 pile of the coat becomes fibrillose, the pale yellows grow brown, the rich browns grow pale, a foxy hue 



