The only specimen known in Europe is in alcohol in the museum at Berlin. 

 In this specimen the sclerotium has produced three white, mesopodal fructifi- 

 cations. The pores are small and white. I think the species has never been 

 formally described, 6 though the name was printed and a figure given in Engler 

 and Prantl. Professor Moeller seems to have been under the impression that 

 it may prove to be Polyporus tuberaster of Europe, which I think is not possible 

 as the latter does not have a true sclerotium. 



POLYPORUS MYLITTAE. For many years the tuber called 

 "native bread" has been known in Australia and like the Tuckahoe of 

 our southern United States its true nature was unknown. 



Berkeley named it Mylitta australis and it was supposed to be related to the 

 Ascomycetes. In 1885 Mr. H. T. Tisdall found specimens that had developed 

 fructification of a Polyporus and he gave an account of it in the Victorian 

 Naturalist. It was sent to Kew and named Polyporus Mylittae. The pileus is 

 fleshy, tough, white with a short, deformed stem and white pores. The spores 

 were recorded as elliptical, 4x8. The specimen was not preserved as far as I 

 can find. I have seen a more elaborate account of this curious species with 

 illustrations in some Australian publication, but at present I can not place it. 



Note Polyporus tumulosus (see page 86) is supposed to produce large, conglomerate masses 

 of mycelium, " often found when trenching around Brisbane," but I can not see from the account that 

 the connection of the fungus is established with these masses. Polyporus basilapicliodes, an Aus- 

 tralian species, produces a very hard, conglomerate, mycelial mass. It is not classed in this section. 

 There are two other Polyporoids known to me that have true sclerotia, but I would class both in an- 

 other section. These are Polyporus sacer, which seems common in Africa, and Polyporus rhinocerotis, 

 known only from Malay. 



GROUP 2. STEMS USUALLY MESOPODIAL, PORES SMALL. 



POLYPORUS OVINUS (Fig. 497). Pileus fleshy, white with 

 a. dull surface. Flesh firm, white. Stipe usually mesopodial, rarely 

 excentric, fleshy, white, similar in texture to the pileus. Pores 

 minute, round, regular. Spores subglobose, 3^-4, hyaline, smooth, 

 guttulate. 



This is the most common plant in the group that grows in the pine woods 

 of Sweden. I have noted it in the market of Stockholm, and it is used as a 

 food. In central and southern Europe it is more rare, being found chiefly in the 

 Alpine regions of central Europe. It has not been recorded from England and 

 it is doubtful if it occurs in the United States. I have never collected it, but 

 have seen species so determined by Peck and Farlow, and I received one col- 

 lection from Geo. L. Morris, Massachusetts, that I think (with doubt) should 

 be referred here. These specimens were all small, black and unsatisfactory. 7 

 In drying the plant is apt to turn black, in which character it differs from Poly- 

 porus confluens which when fresh and growing singly may be confused with it. 8 

 Particularly as Polyporus ovinus when old often takes a "scorched" appearance 

 somewhat similar in color to that of confluens. The plants can be readily told 

 apart in the colors they assume in drying, blackish in ovinus, red in confluens. 



6 In pidgin Latin according to the rules, and hence in the eyes of the law it has no existence. 



7 At Kew there are two American specimens determined as ovinus by Berkeley : both I think 

 wrong. The one from Lea, Cincinnati, is quite different in its quite distinct spores, is unknown to me 



8 There are American specimens of Polyporus confluens determined as ovinus in several mu- 

 seums of Europe, and some of Trog's Swiss distribution were so misdetermined. 



7 6 



