Report of the state botanist 1917 97 



Poria odora (Peck) Sacc. 



Plate 13 



Syll. Fung. 6: 294. 1888 



Polyporus (Physisporus) odorus Peck, 38th Rep't N. Y. State 

 Mus., p. 92. 1885 



Original description. Effused, 2 to 3 lines thick, even, tirm but 

 brittle, moist, separable from the matrix, white sometimes stained 

 with reddish yellow on the abrupt, rather thick, slightly fimbriate 

 margin ; pores very minute, rather long, equal, entire, white, arising 

 from a thin but distinct subiculum ; odor strong, disagreeable. 



Under surface of decorticated prostrate trunks of spruce. 

 Osceola. Aug. 



It forms patches several inches broad and sometimes more than 

 a foot long. It is distinguished from P . vulgaris by being 

 separable from the matrix, moist, having longer pores and a strong 

 odor. From the next following species [Poria subacida 

 (Peck) Sacc] it may be known by its smaller pores, more brittle 

 texture and its different odor. 



Notes. The type collection consists of four fragments mounted 

 on a herbarium sheet and several specimens preserved in a paper 

 packet. The largest specimen is 6 cm long and about 3 cm broad 

 (plate 13, figure i). The specimens are very rigid and firm and 

 apparently become considerably colored on drying. According to 

 Peck the fresh specimens are white with sometimes a stain of 

 reddish yellow on the margin. At present the color varies from 

 avellaneous to cinnamon buff or clay color, and suffused with a 

 gray pruinosity. The plants probably become the darker of these 

 colors when bruised. 



The margin is rather abruptly sterile and still retains a reddish 

 }'ellow color in most cases. In some specimens it almost entirely 

 disappears. The thickness of the hymenium-producing portion is 

 from 2 to 5 mm. The subiculum is rather conspicuous but scarcely 

 more than one-fourth of a millimeter thick, and white in color. 

 The tubes are 2 to 4 mm long and their mouths are more or less 

 angular and covered with a grayish bloom. They vary in diameter 

 from 5 to 7 to a millimeter. The walls are rather thick and entire. 

 There is no sheen or silkiness to the hymenium. 



The spores are allantoid or cylindric, hyaline, 3 to 4 /z long by 

 about I ix broad (plate 13, figure 3). The basidia are quite small, 

 usually not more than 2 yu, in diameter. There are no cystidia or 

 other sterile structures in the hymenium (plate 13, figure 4). The 



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