188 STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



at Blowing Rock, N. C, September, 1899. Figures on the colored 

 plate represent this plant. 



Polyporus frondosus Fr. Edible. — This plant occurs in both Europe 

 and America, and while not very common seems to be widely dis- 

 tributed. It grows about old stumps or dead trees, from roots, often 

 arising from the roots below the surface of the ground, and also is 

 found on logs. The plant represents a section of the genus Polyporus, 

 in which the body, both the stem and the cap, are very much 

 branched. In this species the stem is stout at the base, but it 

 branches into numerous smaller trunks, which continue to branch 

 until finally the branches terminate in the expanded and leaf-like 

 caps as shown in Figs. 176, 177. The plants appear usually during 

 late summer and in the autumn. This species is often found about 

 oak stumps. Some of the specimens are very large, and weigh 10 

 to 20 pounds, and the mass is sometimes 30 to 60 cm. (1-2 feet) in 

 diameter. 



The plant, when young and growing, is quite soft and tender, 

 though it is quite firm, it never becomes very hard, as many of the 

 other species of this family. When mature, insects begin to attack 

 it, and not being tough it soon succumbs to the ravages of insects and 

 decay, as do a number of the softer species of the Polyporacece. The 

 caps are very irregular in shape, curved, repand, radiately furrowed, 

 sometimes zoned ; gray, or hair-brown, in color, with a perceptibly 

 hairy surface, the hairs running in lines on the surface. Sometimes 

 they are quite broad and not so numerous as in Plate 61, and in 

 other plants they are narrow and more numerous, as in Plate 62. 

 The tubes are more or less irregular, whitish, with a yellowish tinge 

 when old. From the under side of the cap they extend down on the 

 stem. When the spores are mature they are sometimes so numerous 

 that they cover the lower caps and the grass for quite a distance 

 around as if with a white powder. 



This species is edible, and because of the large size which it often 

 attains, the few plants which are usually found make up in quantity 

 what they lack in numbers. Since the plant is quite firm it will 

 keep several days after being picked, in a cool place, and will serve 

 for several meals. A specimen which 1 gathered was divided 

 between two families, and was served at several meals on successive 

 days. When stewed the plant has for me a rather objectionable 

 taste, but the stewing makes the substance more tender, and when 

 this is followed by broiling or frying the objectionable taste is 

 removed and it is quite palatable. The plants represented in Plates 

 61 and 62 were collected at Ithaca. 



