1925] 



BURT — THE THELEPHORACEAE OF NORTH AMERICA. XIV 273 



Specimens examined : 

 Mexico: Jalapa, W. A. & E. L. Murrill, 192, comm. by N. Y. 



Bot. Gard. Herb, (in Mo. Bot. Gard. Herb., 54549). 

 Bermuda: S. Brown, N. L. Britton & F. J. Seaver, 1507, comm. 



by N. Y. Bot. Gard. Herb. 

 Jamaica: Castleton Gardens, W. A. & E. L. Murrill, 71, type, 



comm. by N. Y. Bot. Gard. Herb.; Mandeville, A. E. Wight, 



comm. by W. G. Farlow. 



52. P. phosphorescens Burt, n. sp. 



Type: in Burt Herb, and probably in Farlow Herb. 



Fructifications effused, membranaceous, separable, becoming 

 clay-color to avellaneous in the herbarium, and widely cracked 

 into rectangular portions about 5 mm. in diameter, which curl 

 up somewhat from the substratum along the fissures and show 

 the whitish, cottony subiculum, the hymenium waxy, somewhat 

 tubercular and minutely spotted in the type, the margin thinning 

 out; in section 300-500 \x thick, not colored, 2-layered, with the 

 layer next to the substratum composed of loosely interwoven 

 hyphae 3-3 H (J- in diameter, the hymenial layer up to 200 \x 

 thick, composed of densely arranged hyphae and cystidia; no 

 gloeocystidia ; cystidia incrusted, 70-100 X 12-18 \i, fusiform, 

 acute, sometimes tilted, immersed throughout the hymenial layer, 

 few protruding; spores hyaline, even, subglobose, 4-5 X 3-33^ [x; 

 said to be phosphorescent when collected. 



Fructifications probably large, for collections consist of frag- 

 ments 7 X IH cm., and 1^-3 cm. in diameter. 



On rotten wood of fence post and decaying bark of frondose 

 species. Jamaica. October to December. 



P. phosphorescens may be recognized by the thick, clay-colored 

 fructifications which contract in drying so as to crack into rec- 

 tangular masses about 5 mm. in diameter, separated from one 

 another by rather wide fissures. The thick, hymenial portion of 

 each mass is so weakly attached to the substratum by the loose 

 subiculum that these masses curl upward along their edges and 

 may occasionally become wholly detached. The cystidia are 

 suggestive of those of P. flavido-alha but all other characters of 

 these two species are different. Phosphorescence has been re- 

 corded for but few fungi. 



