178 Journal of the Mitchell Society [February 



part often quite smooth; multizonate, the more conspicuous zones 

 with obscure ones between; usually crimped and waved to form 

 radiating ridges like an oyster or pecten shell ; color on younger grow- 

 ing margin buff -tawny, then dull tawny-brown or at times abruptly 

 blackish-brown, with dull purple zones and often deep gray zones 

 near the margin. Flesh about 0.5-0.8 mm. thick, very hard and 

 woody, not at all pliable when dry, composed of four distinct layers, 

 the lower, just under the pale hymenium, thickest, ochraceous buff 

 color, with vertical fibers and distinctly stratified in old plants (this rep- 

 resenting the different layers of old hymenium) ; the next layer thinner 

 (unless plant is young) and lighter with horizontal fibers; the next 

 thinner still and black or nearly so and hard and shining like rosin; 

 the upper brownish and densely spongy; threads of flesh densely 

 packed, 3-4[x thick, without clamp connections. Hymenium smooth, 

 pale creamy flesh color, cracking in age, often wrinkled and nodu- 

 lated and obscurely zoned, becoming dull brownish red when bruised 

 in the fresh state. 



Spores (of No. 3828) smooth, white, oval, 2.5-3.7 X 3.8-5.5[x. 

 Cystidia numerous, encrusted, blunt, about 5.2-7.5[i, thick, pro- 

 jecting about 7.5-1 1[JL — a few bottle-brush paraphyses were seen in 

 our preparations. 



The caps are perennial, the new growth arising from the lower 

 layer of flesh only, and forming a new hymenium over the old one. 

 Old plants may be practically black and the old hymenium may 

 become straw color or dull creamy yellow with discolorations due to 

 black or green molds. It is not often that one finds plants in so 

 fresh a condition as to show the change to reddish in the hymenium, 

 but the plant is easily determined by its other characters. Rare 

 at Chapel Hill; apparently more common in the Coastal Plain. Our 

 plant is just like S. suhpileatum B. & C, as represented by No. 219 

 in the Ravenel Exsiccati. Stereum sepium is very near, but is 

 separated by Burt on account of the abundance of bottle-brush 

 paraphyses. Stereum insigne also differs in having many such para- 

 physes and in the absence of cystidia. Stereum rugosum has been 

 considered in a different section on account of the red juice in its 

 hymenium, but in our collections of S. suhpileatum the hymenium 

 also turns red when bruised, a fact which has not been mentioned by 

 others. There is, however, no obvious juice in the latter. 

 2837. On an oak log, September 23, 1917. 

 3828. On the same log as No. 2837, December 6, 1919. 



