188 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE [VOL. xII 
by them for various uses. Mr. Bartlett writes: ‘I have always known 
them as the *Pineapple fungus. In the early days settlers used them 
instead of hops for making yeast; they were also added to a brew of 
home-made beer. They are very bitter and used to be considered a 
good tonic’’. ‘‘They are fairly common all over Ontario and Quebec, 
that is to say I have found them in many sections while lumbering. 
They were a highly valued substitute for hops in the making of yeast. 
Going back sixty years, my wife’s mother, one of the early settlers in 
the township of McNab, used them for years in bread making. A piece 
of the pineapple fungus was boiled, as is done with hops, and the liquid 
put into the new yeast to start it working. I have known it ever since 
I came to Canada, but cannot say where the early settlers got their 
information regarding it. They also used Maple Rag, the lichen found 
growing on the maple tree, and also the seeds of the Ironwood.f The 
two latter I have frequently used myself to make bread’’. The fruiting 
bodies commonly occur on the ‘‘green’’ pine, that is, on living trees, 
but are also found on dead wood. A specimen in Mr. Bartlett’s posses- 
sion, collected in Algonquin Park, measures 1 foot in height by 73 inches 
by 7% inches, weighs (dry weight) about 5 pounds, and shows 15 years 
of growth. (Fig. 3). 
It is uncertain whether or not the settlers brought their knowledge 
of this fungus with them, discovered it independently, or learned of 
it from the Indians. The only information on this point I have been 
able to secure is the statement on a label of a specimen in the Museum 
of Economic Botany, Kew Gardens, collected by Dr. D. Lyall about 
1860—‘‘from British North America, where it is used by the Indians as 
a purgative’’. 
*Pineapple originally, that is in Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and later, meant pine 
cone. 
“ His (the pine’s) fruite is great Boulleans or bawles of a brown chestnut colour, and 
are called pine-apples.’’ Lyte in Dodoens. 
And similarly pine trees were called pineapple trees. 
“Now for pynappul tree 
The colde or weetische land must sowen be.” 
—Palladius Husbondrie, p. 98. 
Gerard in his Herbal included all coniferous trees under this name. ‘Wherein he 
(Pliny) was somewhat deceived, and especially in that he took Glandifera for Conifera, 
that is those trees which bear mast or acornes for the Pineapple trees”’. 
Now obsolete, it is interesting that this old word is still perpetuated in its original 
sense in connection with Fomes officinalis. It is also interesting that the name pineapple 
was borrowed and applied to the fruit of Ananas ananas at the time of its introduction 
because of its resemblance to a pine cone, and that the name has been so wholly mono- 
polized by the borrower. 
TOstrya virginiana. 
