prevails ou the upper side^ while the pores have become dirty greeuish-grey, and the tubes acquired the 

 length of those belouging to the Boletus tribe^ the decaying laxity of the fronds renders each pileus nearly 

 plane, and the irregular variegations of its surface having become merged into one another, the zones have 

 a much more regular effect than in youth. This is the effect of fair decay ; unfair decay, that is, bruising 

 and wounding, turn the injured portions black of so cold a shade, that, like lamp-black mixed with white 

 lead which every body knows paints posts and doors blue, by contrast with the other warm tints of the 

 Polyporus, blue is apparently evoked, and in some otherwise good Italian dra\vings, we have seen ultramarine 

 stains and stripes which we may vainly look for in Nature. In this stage, although it cannot be considered 

 in a state of decomposition, the scent is exceedingly disagreeable. 



Mr. Berkeley wrote in 1846 : " I saw a cart-load of it at the base of one tree at Kew, and most magni- 

 ficient it was ;" he did not however mention the species of tree. Esculent it certainly is not ; in extreme 

 youth when the substance might perhaps admit of mastication, the flavour is astringent and disagreeable ; 

 in full growth the substance when torn longitudinally, resembles the untwisted cotton called " Moravian " 

 from being used for embroidery by that industrious community, a very far from agreeable substance to get 

 entangled among the teeth. While the Polj-porous remains in situ, extracting moisture from the soil, &c., 

 the progress of decay is into the flaccid state before described, but when removed in the turf and not 

 placed in water, it dries up into a rigid black persistent substance, like A. adustus. 



The grass beneath the vigorous plant from which our portrait was taken, was loaded with the pale 

 ochraceous spores, so copiously scattered, that the green colour was entirely lost beneath them. 



This polyporus is decidedly the same as that which, in the genuine editions of Withering is described 

 under the name " Frondosus," wliich is not an Enghsh species that we are at present aware of, and wliich 

 is nearly akin to P. intyhaceus, given in Plate VI. of these Illustrations. It would seem scarcely possible 

 to confound the two plants, and having depicted both, trust the task has been so faithfully performed as to 

 preclude error. 



