[Vol. 2 

 734 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 



tough consistency and by lack of brittleness. The longitudin- 

 ally septate basidia afford a decisive character in all doubtful 

 cases. 



The specific distinctions between the more common species 

 of this genus are based largely upon the form of mature and 

 well-developed fructifications ; very young, deformed, or frag- 

 mentary specimens can not be referred very confidently to 

 their species. 



Key to the Species 



Fructifications branched when well developed. Simple forms may be 

 present when very young or in the same colony with normal branched 

 forms 1 



Fructifications simple 4 



1. Fructific;\tions normally cespitose, more or less gro-mi together 2 



1. Fructifications solitary or scattered 3 



2. With pileate divisions flattened, grown together at many points of 



contact, forming rosett€-like masses 2-15 cm. in diameter. .1. T . pallidum 



2. With the stems grown together into a main stem 2-10 mm. thick; 

 pileate divisions cylindric, spreading, grown together at only few 



points of contact; the smaller divisions about 1^ mm. thick 



2. T. candidum 



2. Sometimes with both stems and pileate divisions grown together into 

 compact bundles, usually merely closely cespitose and with the 

 branches intricately intertangled; much slenderer than preceding 



species and with the habit of Pterula 5. T. merismatoides 



3. Stem about 1% mm. thick, palmately few-branched; branches once or twice 



similarly branched, cylindric or subcylindric, often channelled on the 



upper side; basidia 15X9 fi; spores 9-15X4^-6 n, pointed at the base 



only 3. T. Cladonia 



3. Stem about i^-l mm. thick, sometimes with occasional, scattered, divergent 



branches from its side, dilated at the upper end, divided into a few, short, 



finger-shaped branches; basidia 20-24X12-14 fi; spores 14-16X6-7 m. 



pointed at both ends, Known from Jamaica only 4- T. tenue 



4. Fructification dark orange, probably with medullary tissue pale as in 

 all the preceding species; basidia subglobose, 10-12 fi in diameter 

 6. T. aurantium 



4. Fructification black with the exception of the hymenium; hymenium 

 olive-ocher, amphigenous on the lower third of the fructification; 

 basidia 11X7 /*• Known from Porto Rico only 7. T. simplex 



1. Tremellodendron pallidum (Schw.) Burt, n. comb. 



Plate 26, fig. 6. 



Thelephora (Merisma) pallida Schw. Am. Phil. Soc. Trans. 

 N. S. 4: 166. 1834.— T. Schweinitzii Peck, N. Y. State Mus. 

 Kept. 29: 67. 1878; Saccardo, Syll. Fung. 6: 534. 1888.— 

 Tremellodendron Schweinitzii (Peck) Atk. Jour. Myc. 8:106. 

 1902. 



Illustrations: Hard, Mushrooms /. 361. — Moffatt, Chicago 

 Acad. Sci. Bui. 7 : pi. 22. f. 1. 1909. 



