4*4 Murrill: Polypo'raceae of North America 



to 



Plants collected by Millspaugh, no. j?8j8, in Yucatan, appear 

 . be immature specimens of the above species. Oersted's original 

 plants are still preserved at Upsala. Further tropical explora- 

 tion will doubtless discover more of this remarkable species. 



6. Spongiporus gen. now 



Type : Polyporus leucospongia Cooke & Hark. 



Hymenophore small, annual, epixylous, sessile, dimidiate, 

 pulvinate ; surface white, anoderm to subpelliculose, azonate, 

 soft and elastic ; context white, extremely soft and spongy through- 

 out ; hymenium rigid, somewhat discolored, tubes large, irregular, 

 thin-walled, lacerate; spores smooth, hyaline. 



Spongiporus leucospongia (Cooke & Hark.) 



Polyporus leucospongia Cooke & Hark. Grevillea II : 106. 1883. 



This species was described from plants collected by Harkness 

 at an altitude of 2,400 meters in the Sierra Nevada Alts., California, 

 in 1882, growing upon decaying pine and spruce logs. Plants 

 sent to Ellis under the name of P. labyrinthicus Schw. were for- 

 warded to Cooke, who said they were clearly not P. labyrinthicus 

 and suggested that they be described as new under the name of 

 Polyporus leucospongia, an eminently appropriate name, since the 

 whole piieus is pure white and as soft as a delicate sponge when 

 young. Specimens have since been several times collected in 

 Colorado by Bethel at about 3,600 meters on coniferous logs pro- 

 jecting from the snow. In such localities, he says, the plant is 

 common, covering the ends of all such projecting logs. Crandall 

 has also found it in Colorado and Nelson in Wyoming. 



In Saccardo's Sylloge this species is queerly mixed with P. 

 labyrinthicus, an error which clearly originated at Kew, for the 

 sheet containing specimens of P. labyrinthicus labeled " U. S., C. 

 B. Plowright" contains also at the bottom two packets of P. leuco- 

 spongia from Harkness, no. 1012, collected in California on Piuus 

 contorta and sent, as we know, under the name of P. labyrinthicus. 



7. SPONGIPELLIS Pat. Hymen. Europ. 140. 1SS7 



Type : Spongipellis spumeus (Sow.) Pat. 

 Postia Karst. Rev. Myc. 3": 17. 1881. (Not Postia Boiss. & 

 Blanch. 1875.) Type: Polyporus borealis Fr. 



