THE GENUS CLADODERRIS. 



Legend. This pamphlet is the result of my observations in the Museums at Kew, British 

 Museum, Leiden, Upsala, Berlin, and Paris, and my studies of the specimens found in these museums. 

 It covers authentic specimens of every species named (27) with the exception of five. 



Two of Leveille's species, Blumei and formosa, may be at Leiden, but I did not think to hunt 

 for them while there. They are in no other museum. Platensis is not found in any museum in 

 Europe. Roccati, I have not seen the specimens, and Schumanniana I did not succeed in finding at 

 Berlin, though it is said to be in the exhibition department. 



Characters. Cladcderris is a small but elegant tropical genus of 

 Thelephoraceous fungi, very close to the genus Stereum, from which 

 it differs in having costate, often papillate hymenium, and in most 

 specimens a thick, dense, interwoven tomentum layer on the pileus. 

 When Fries proposed the genus he based it on the former only, but 

 the latter is a marked feature of most species. 

 The specific characters that have value are: 



1st. The nature of the hymenium folds, whether narrow and 

 sharp or broad and obtuse. Our illustrations show these characters 

 better than we can describe them. 



2nd. The presence or absence of papillae. I doubt if this is 

 an absolute or constant character, for I think there are probably no 

 species in which papillae are always absent, though in the original 

 species Cladoderris dendritica, papillae are absent on most specimens. 

 3rd. The nature of the upper tomentose layer of the pileus, very 

 dense and thick (Fig. 520) in Cladoderris dendritica (as in the section 



Funalis of Polystictus) but 

 less developed in Cladoder- 

 ris infundibuliformis and 

 funalis. 



The first division of 

 the species by Fries (based 

 Fig - 52 - on single collections) ar- 



Section through Cladoderris dendritica, showing ranged them On Stipe char- 



tomentumpad. acters, whether sessile, lat- 



eral or central. These char- 

 acters have no specific value, for all gradations are often found in 

 the same collection. Usually specimens have a short or long lateral 

 stipe, the length of the stipe varying much in the same collection. 

 More rarely are specimens found with a central stipe, often the stipe 

 is very short or wanting, but in the latter case the plants are at- 

 tached by a reduced base. 



The spores of Cladoderris are hyaline, hence the plant is very 

 -closely related to Stereum in the modern sense, or Thelephora in part, 

 of the early mycologists, but not Thelephora as now usually restricted 

 to plants with colored, rough spores. 



Some species of Cladoderris have hyaline cystidia and others 

 appear to have none, but the cystidia characters have not been 

 studied by me in detail. 



