RARE OR INTERESTING SPECIES OF FUNGI RE- 

 CEIVED FROM CORRESPONDENTS. 



POLYSTICTUS FLABELLIFORMIS VAR TAPONICA 

 FROM J. UMEMURA, JAPAN. Polystictus flabelliformis (cfr! 

 Stipitate Polyporoids, page 143) is a common species in the East. It 

 is the only one in this section I found in Samoa. It usually corresponds 

 to the type idea from Mauritius with a lateral stem, one half to an 

 inch long. A subsessile form is the common form in Japan. It is 

 paler color, the pores are whiter, and it is a fairly constant form in 

 Japan, but not elsewhere. We have specimens as follows- Umemura 

 15, 73, 76, 154, 175; Yasuda, 115, 253. (We have one collection 

 from Madagascar.) Professor Yasuda writes, "These sessile, villose 



Fig. 883. 



specimens appear to run gradually into stalked, smooth specimens." 

 The stalked, smooth plant is known as Polystictus affinis, but the 

 whole group is really one species. Where a plant has a fairly distinct 

 character (subsessile in this case) in connection with geographical dis- 

 tribution (Japan in this case), we feel that it is entitled to a dis- 

 tinctive name as a variety at least. In the past we have referred 

 some of these Japanese collections to Polystictus pterygodes, but this 

 species (very rare) has in its type idea a shiny, glabrous pileus, the 

 same as Polystictus xanthopus, but sessile. 



LACHNOCLADIUM CONGESTUM, FROM E. CHEEL, 

 NEW SOUTH WALES (Fig. 884). Berkeley named this plant as 

 Thelephora. There is in warm countries a type of dendroid plants 

 that should be classed in Clavariaceae, viz., the hymenium is amphi- 

 genous and they resemble Clavarias excepting that they are tough 

 in texture and in their spores. The true Thelephora genus has its 

 hymenium on one surface only (though there are exceptions). The 



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