MuRRiLL : The Polyporaceae of North America 603 



hexagonal, white or yellow, at length brown, dissepiments c-ntire, 

 obtuse, becoming acute : spores ovoid, obtuse, at the summit, at- 

 tenuate and truncate at the base, yellowish-brown, verrucose, 9—1 1 

 X l-^ !>■ '■ stipe lateral, excentric, central, or wanting, erect to as- 

 cending, 0-30 X 0.5-4 cm., equal, irregular, or enlarging above, 

 concolorous, glabrous, shining, laccate, the substance similar to 

 the context and darker at the center. 



On living or dead trunks, stumps, or roots of oak, alder, hazel, 

 maple, willow, honey-locust, sweet-gum, and beech in Sweden, 

 Germany, Bavaria, France, England, America and Australia. 

 American material has been examined from New York, New Jersey, 

 Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Vir- 

 ginia, North Carolina, South Carolinia, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 

 Mexico, and Nicaragua. 



This fungus has been found fossil in the lake dwellings of 

 Switzerland and has been known for a long time on account of its 

 conspicuous coloring caused by a thick glutinous juice which ex- 

 udes from its surface and dries upon it as a thin lustrous coating. 

 Albino or semi-albino forms occur where the coating is lacking or 

 incomplete. In age the varnish disappears and the pileus takes on 

 a grayish weather-beaten appearance. As the young pileus begins 

 to form at the end of the stipe it is white or yellow in color with- 

 out varnish and somewhat resembles an unexpanded agaric. It 

 is this stage that Jacquin figured and described in his Flora i\us- 

 triaca as Agariciis pscudoboletus. Several immature plants were 

 found by him in a grove growing about the base of a dead oak 

 trunk. The description he gives is quite a good one and, taken 

 with the fine colored plate, leaves no doubt as to the identity of 

 the specimens. The succeeding year he collected several mature 

 plants which he described as Boletus riigosiis as follows : — 



" Fungus speciosus putridis arborum truncis innascitur, totus lignoso-coriaceus et 

 persistens. Stipes durus, inaequalis, badius, vernice veluti obductus, calamum vel 

 policem crassus radone voluminis ipsius fungi, pileum gerit plerumque subdimidiatum, 

 dum laterali ejusdem parti adnecitur. Hie superne planus est, rugosus primum, ex 

 rubro badius et nitidissimus, tandem hepaticus minusque nitens. Corticis pauca 

 substantia est interne coriacea, holoserisea, cinnamomea, tenax atque ad fomitem 

 apta. Substantia tubulosa concolor, crassa, a corticosa separabilis, subtilissime 

 porosa ; subtus punctata, in principio pallens, sensim magis cinnamomea ; ad cibum 

 inepta. Fungi duo, ex eodem loco exorti, et majores, in tabula proponuntur, 

 hinc atque illiuc spectati. Turn fungulus minor; et fungi pars, ut pateant in- 

 teriora." 



