POLYPORACEAE 491 



Fig. 162. Polyporales, Family Polyporaceae. Laetiporus sulphureus (Bull, ex Fr.) Murr. 



(Courtesy, F. C. Strong.) 



which forms a series of shelves up to 60 cm. broad, bright yellow to 

 orange in color, and rather fleshy and edible at first and dry and cheesy 

 at maturity. The dried sporophores when ground up and soaked in water 

 are edible upon cooking. It occurs at the bases of trunks of deciduous 

 trees, often oak, whose wood it destroys. Occurring very commonly on 

 standing trunks of birch {Betula) are the spore fruits of Piptoporus 

 hetulinus (Bull, ex Fr.) Karst. The more or less hoof-shaped, reniform or 

 globose sporophores are attached by a narrowed, almost stipe-like portion 

 to the side of the trunk. The gray or whitish surface consists of a thin 

 layer which flakes off with age from the white pilear trama. The layer of 

 3 to 8 mm. long pores separates easily from the thick layer of the pileus. 

 (Figs. 161, 162.) 



The old genus Trametes was supposed to be characterized by the 

 uninterrupted continuation of the pilear trama into that of the pore 

 layers, with the further character that the pores were of different depths 

 in the same spore fruit. These are true of some species but also occur in 

 some of the genera formerly included in Polyporus, Polystictus, and Fomes. 

 As a result the genus Trametes has been much reduced and segregated 

 into six or eight genera. Among these is Pogonomyces hydnoides (Schw.) 

 Murr., a very common species of Florida and the Tropics. Its dimidiate, 

 sessile, sometimes imbricate spore fruits may be 5 to 10 cm. broad and 

 up to 1 cm. thick. The upper surface is covered by long, black, stiff, 

 branched fibers which resemble considerably the teeth of some species of 

 Hydnaceae. The pileus trama is dark brown, punky to corky and that 

 of the tubes light brown. Pycnoporus cinnabarinus (Jacq. ex Fr.) Karst. 



