SECTION 6. 



Merismus. This section includes species that have several pilei proceeding from 

 the branching of a common stem or root-stalk. This is the same sense in which it 

 is used in the polyporoids. In the sense of Persoon as originally applied as a genus 

 of Thelephoroids, viz.: the encrusting species, it is a different idea. 



STEREUM PALLIDUM (Fig. 551). Pilei imbricate, multi- 

 plex, formed of various confluent lobes, irregular. Color rugose, 

 faintly zoned when fresh. The upper surface striate fibrillose with 

 long fibrils. Hymenium smooth, uneven. Cystidia, none. It grows 

 in the earth, from a thick rooting system. Some collections are moie 

 simple and infundibuliform, and might be sought in Section 2. 



Fig. 550 



Stereum pallidum. 



Fig 551 



Stereum petalodes. 



This seems to be a rather frequent species in Euiope, and has 

 been badly confused. Persoon named it and figured it, and authentic 

 specimens are still in his herbarium. He described it, unfortunately, 

 as having setulose hymenium, which his specimens do not bear out 

 nor are there any similar species known in Europe with that char- 

 acter. Fries compiled it in his Systema and confused it with Sowerby's 

 figure of pannosum, hence in early exsiccatae it is usually called Thele- 

 phora pannosa (viz.: Desm. 412 & 797, Rabenhorst, 1805). When he 

 first met it, Berkeley referred it to Stereum elegans, a tropical species. 

 Afterwards he seems to have confused it with Sower byi, and finally 

 named it as a new species, Thelephora multizonata. A recent Vienna 

 exsiccatae (318) has the species correctly referred to Persoon's name, 

 which is the only correctly-named specimen I have seen at London. 

 The Germans, however, have made good recent collections, and have 

 mostly correctly referred it at Berlin. Quelet referred the plant to 

 Thelephora intybacea and then discovered that Thelephora intybacea 

 (in the sense of Fries, at least) was a "new species," Thelephora 

 atrocitrina. 



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