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The Biology of Polyporus Pargamenus Fries ao 
History and Synonomy. 
Since its description in 1838, the identity of Polyporus 
pargamenus has been obscured repeatedly owing to the fact 
that various forms or collections of it have been described 
as distinct species. Without due regard for the fact that 
the various morphological characters of one and the same 
species of fungus are subject to considerable variation, 
especially when grown under widely different environments 
in various parts of the world, mycologists often have been 
misled and have described aberrant or imperfectly developed 
forms of this plant as new species. Moreover, the various 
ecological forms of this plant have been published inde- 
pendently as “‘ new species” in former years from three or 
four European centers of research, each ignoring the exist- 
ence of the rest. In many cases these brief early deserip- 
tions are entirely inadequate and the poorly preserved type 
plants, when they exist at all, often fail to supplement them 
_ sufficiently. Add to this the host of incorrect determinations 
found in the literature then current, the wholesale assign- 
ment of foreign names to plants exelusively American, and 
the glittering array of species combined under one name in 
important herbaria, and the reason for the confusion over the 
status of this plant becomes clear. Polyporus pargamenus is 
generally believed to have been described first by Fries 
(1838, p. 480) from specimens collected from trunks of pine 
in arctic North America by the Franklin Expedition. Dr. 
W. A. Murrill of the New York Botanical Garden, how- 
ever, who has recently examined the type specimens, has 
decided that they are a form of Polyporus abietinus Fries 
[ Coriolus® abietinus (Dicks.) Quél.|.° According to Mur- 
°In keeping with the present day tendency of a few authors to break 
up the old cumbersome genera, containing a large aggregation of often 
heterogeneous species, and to regroup the species into smaller groups 
containing only closely related species, Murrill (1903, p. 93) states that 
the name “ Polystictus”’ is not valid since it is a synonym of Coltricia 
Gray, proposed in 1821. According to Murrill, this removes “ Poly- 
stictus ” since it was not used until several years later by Fries (1851)- 
As a result of this discrepancy Murrill (1903, p. 95) has adopted 
Coriolus Quél. as the generic name for the thin coriaceous species of the 
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