pores of Hexagona leprosa appears finely pubescent, but under the 

 lens the hairs are sub-hyaline and are of quite different nature from 

 the colored setae of other species. 



Color of context. Most species have a colored context. It is 

 hard for me to designate the exact color, though it is customary to 

 describe it as cinnamon, ferruginous, gilvous, etc. In this pamphlet 

 I designate these as having "colored context." A fewer number have 

 a context color white or pale ochraceous, much paler than the former. 

 We indicate these as "pale context." The difference between these 

 two context colors is so marked that the character can be used to 

 advantage in classification, and we base on it one of our groups. 



The glaucescence of pores. Many collections of Hexagona have 

 pores strongly silvery glaucous, and it is a puzzling question how much 

 stress to place on it in classification. In itself, I think it is not of much 

 value, for many collections show some specimens glaucous and others 

 not or only partially so. It seems to me to be a sort of deposit on 

 the pores, with age perhaps. At Kew there is a specimen of Hexagona 

 apiaria where most of the pores are strongly glaucous and the outer 

 (younger) ones not at all. It is one of the species that has setae 

 on the pores. The setae are quite noticeable on the non-glaucous pores, 

 but in the glaucous ones they are not visible and have been covered 

 up (apparently) with this deposit. 



History of the genus. In the very old days all fungi that had pores were 

 called Boletus, and under this name are included in Linnaeus' Species Plantarum. 

 Palisot-de-Beauvois, who was a collector of African plants, included a few fungi 

 in his plates, and the Polypores he divided into two genera, those with large, 

 round, hexagonal, or elongated pores, that he called Favolus, and those with 

 small, round pores that he called Microporus. Fries divided Palisot's first genus 

 into two, those with hexagonal pores which he called Hexagona, and those 

 with elongated pores that he called Favolus. He took the name Hexagona 

 from a probably inaccurate illustration of Pollini, which however showed hex- 

 agonal pores, and the genus was based on this one character. It has been taken 

 in this sense by mycologists for about eighty years and about a hundred alleged 

 new species have been named in accordance. The early mycologists, Persoon, 

 Klotzsch, and Berkeley, were at first not disposed to consider a "large pored" 

 genus of much value, but after the appearance of Fries' Epicrisis (1838), where 

 he collated all the known species, no one has presumed to deny the genus/" 

 The first species to reach Europe was undoubtedly sent to Linnaeus, who named 

 it Boletus favus. It was from China, but is not in the Linnaean herbarium, 

 but was stated by Klotzsch, Berkeley, and Hariot to be the same as Hexagona 

 Wightii, which it probably is. 6 The next were two species from Africa, beauti- 

 fully illustrated by Palisot-de-Beauvois, and the specimens (one at least) are 



8 How this was overlooked in the priority hunt I do not know. 1753 is such a "i 

 te to arrange alleged synonyms that a good thing like that ought not to be overlookec 



