THE SECTION FUNALES OF POLYSTICTUS. 



There occur in the tropics a few species, but abundant specimens 

 that are covered with a thick, dense mat of coarse fibrils resembling 

 the shaggy coat of some animal. These fibrils are closely interwoven 

 and united into bundles and are almost dense enough to be called a 

 tissue, in fact, the thin context of the plants is resolved into this coat 



Fig. 352. 



Section of Polystictus leouinus Xt> . 



of fibrils. Our figure 352 (x6), a section, will give a good idea of this 

 structure. The pores are large and angular and, in the East Indian 

 .species, are disposed to become irpicoid. The spores are supposed to 

 be white. 



I think there are but two real species in this section, Polystictus leoninus, 

 which occurs in abundance in the East Indies, Ceylon, India, and Africa, but 

 very rarely if at all in America. 12 and Polystictus trichomallus which occurs 

 in tropical America in abundance but is unknown from other tropical countries. 

 It is a curious fact regarding these two common tropical species, each is 

 abundant in its own territory and neither encroaches on the territory of the 

 other. 



History. Fries was the first to separate these plants as a section of 

 Polystictus, then Patouillard discovered them to be a new genus. Cooke main- 

 tained the section in his arrangement and it has been carried into Saccardo, 

 but a number of plants were included in the section in Saccardo that really 

 do not belong to it. Mr. Murrill distorts the meaning entirely and included 

 plants that do not have the pileate structure, and then discovers that plants 

 with this structure form a "new genus," characterized mainly by the same 

 characters as the old section Funales. 



12 Taking the view that Polystictus stupeus is not the same plant. 

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