Massee. — The Fungus Flcra oj Netv Zealand. 9 



On dead trunks, stumps, &c. Common in New Zealand, 

 also widely distributed over southern tropical and subtropical 

 regions. 



A well-marked but at the same time exceedingly variable 

 species. At times the surface of the pileus is marked with more 

 or less deeply indented concentric furrows, at others only slightly 

 concentrically zoned, whereas in other forms the pileus is ir- 

 regularly rugged or tuberculated. The pileus is sometimes thin, 

 almost semicircular, and bracket-like ; at others it becomes 

 elongated and almost cylindrical. Tubes distinctly stratose in 

 thick specimens. The principal features are the very rigid 

 woody cortex, almost too hard to cut with a knife, and the very 

 minute pores. 



Fomes hemitephrus, Cooke, Grev., xiv, p. 21 ; Sacc, Syll., vi, 

 no. 5497. Polyporus hemitephrus. Berk., Fl. N.Z., ii, 179 ; 

 Hdbk. N.Z. Flora, p. 608 (incorrectly written hemitrephius). 



Pileus bracket-shaped, often with a boss near the point of 

 attachment, usually with coarse concentric ridges, glabrous, 

 brown, sometimes paler when young, when the rounded margin 

 is whitish, hard, up to 12 cm. across ; flesh 3-4 cm. thick, wood- 

 colour, hard ; tubes wood-colour, imperfectly stratified ; pores 

 very minute, rounded ; hymenium concave, whitish. 



On trunks of trees. Northern Island, New Zealand. Vic- 

 toria, India, Gold Coast. 



Allied to Fomes fraxineus. Fries. 



Fomes salicinus. Fries, Syst. Myc, i, p. 376 ; FL N.Z., ii, p. 179 ; 

 Hdbk. N.Z. Flora, p. 608 ; Cooke, Austr. Fung., p. 132 ; 

 Sacc, Syll., vi, no. 5429. 



Often broadly efEused, woody, very hard, the greater portion 

 usually resupinate, with a narrow, wavy, smooth, blunt, spreading 

 free margin, cinnamon then greyish ; pores minute, rounded, 

 rusty-cinnamon like the flesh ; spores 5 x 3 /x ; cystidia plenti- 

 ful 12-35 X 6-8 fx. 



On trunks, living and dead, especially species of Salix. Dusky 

 Bay, Middle Island, New Zealand. Queensland, South Africa, 

 Europe, United States. 



Pileus 1 ft. or more across ; entirely resupinate, or on ver- 

 tical trunks having the upper margin free and reflexed. Allied 

 to Fomes fomentarius and F. igniarius, differing in not being 

 hoof-shaped, but thinner in the flesh, and in bemg more efEused 

 over the matrix. Sometimes acts as a destructive wound- 

 parasite. 



