advertisements it would be correct. It appears to me as much more 

 sensible than to adopt, as Mr. Murrill proposes, Polyporus fissus, for 

 a plant that is never normally "fissile," and if ever "fissile" is the re- 

 sult of an abortidn and deformity. 



Polyporus picipes is a frequent plant in the United States, and is 

 very close to Polyporus varius of Europe. Indeed, there is no doubt 

 in my mind but that it is the American form of the European plant, 

 but it differs in being a thinner plant and in having smaller pores. 

 Schweinitz and Montagne 5 both referred our plant to Polyporus 

 varius and Berkeley to Polyporus picipes, 6 the latter a name now gen- 

 ally conceded to have no existence, even as a form in Europe. The 

 name Polyporus picipes has always been used in American mycology 

 for the plant, and while not technically correct, it is practically so, and 

 infinitely better than a name that has no application whatever to the 

 plant, and which is based solely on specimens so abortive that they 

 were not recognized by the author. 



POIvYPORUS LEUCOMELAS. We recently received a speci- 

 men from a correspondent under this name, which we listed under the 

 American name Polyporus griseus as we are not familiar with the 

 European plant. It did not seem it could be the same plant that 

 Fries has figured. The recent picture by Boudier, however, strongly 

 suggests to me that in the end we shall have to refer our Polyporus 

 griseus to the European species, Polyporus leucomelas. 



What a pity it is that we do not have a set of illustrations of the 

 European plants on which we can depend, and that Boudier's plates 

 cover so relatively few of the larger fungi. As it is now, we look up 

 these illustrations in Europe and the most uncertain thing about them 

 is how nearly they represent the plant. 



SPEAKING OF " TYPES ".Some one has mounted on the same sheet an 

 alleged specimen from India that Berkeley has named "Polyporous (blank) Nil- 



S" erries (locality) E. S. B." and a fragment from South Carolina from Ravenel 

 o. 2494) that Berkeley had named "Pol. hypolateritius B." and Cooke publishes 

 (Grev. 15-24) "Poriahypolateritia, Berk., Ad ligno, India." Will some one be kind 

 enough to inform me which is the type? 



5 When Montagne got some little, abortive specimens from Sullivan that he could not 

 recognize he called them Polyporus trachypus and Mr. Murrill gravely informs us that "his 

 description is accurate and quite complete." If it is, Montagne must have been a wizard of 

 some kind to draw such a description from specimens so abortive and incomplete that Mon- 

 tagne himself could not recognize them. When he received fine, typical specimens, now in 

 Montague's herbarium, of the plant from the same collector, Sullivan, he referred them (as they 

 probably are to Polyporus varius. 



6 The plant is usually three or four inches in diameter, and Berkeley referred to Poly- 

 porus varius a mood specimen that he got from Ohio, typically representing the American plant, 

 and the specimen is now at Kew, mounted on the same sheet with a specimen from Fries. In 

 another cover there are two little depauperate plants from Lea, the small one about the size of 

 your thumb nail, the other a little larger, and neither fissile, so deformed that, if they belong to 

 this species, Berkeley did not n'cognizt them, and he called them Polyporus fissus. If he got 

 any '"fissile" ones, they are not now preserved. The plants are so deformed that it is hard to 

 say whether they are or are not the plant Berkeley usually referred to Polyporus picipes. Mr. 

 Murrill decides they are, though Berkeley never knew it, and on such evidence would change 

 a well-established name. It appears to me as carrying "priority" a long ways beyond the limit 

 of reason. 



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