^N^. 



TUBE-BEARING FUNGI. 187 



Fistulina firma. But two plants were then found, and these were 

 connected at the base. During August and September it was quite 

 common in a small woods near Ithaca, N. Y., and was first collected 

 growing from the roots of a dead oak stump, August 4 (No. 3227 

 C. U. herbarium), and afterward during October. During Septem- 

 ber I collected it at Blowing Rock, N. C, in the Blue Ridge moun- 

 tains, at an elevation of nearly 5000 feet, growing from the roots of 

 a dead white oak tree. It was collected during September, 1899, by 

 Mr. Frank Rathbun at Auburn, N. Y. It was collected by Ravenel 

 in the mountains of South Carolina, around a white oak stump by 

 Peters in Alabama, and was first described by Berkeley in 1872, in 

 Grev. 1: 71, Notices of N. A. F. No. 173. Growing from roots or 

 wood underneath the surface of the ground, the plant has an erect 

 stem, the length of the stem depending on the depth at which the 

 root is buried, just as in the case of Polyporus radicatus, which has 

 a similar habitat. The plants are 5-12 cm. high, the cap is 3-7 cm. 

 broad, and the stem 6-8 mm. in thickness. 



The pileus is wood brown to fawn, clay color or isabelline color. 

 It is nearly semi-circular to reniform in outline, and the margin 

 broadly crenate, or sometimes lobed. The stem is attached at the con- 

 cave margin, where the cap is auriculate and has a prominent boss or 

 elevation, and bent at right angles with a characteristic curve. The 

 pileus is firm, flexible, tough and fibrous, flesh white. The surface 

 is covered with a fine and dense tomentum. The pileus is 5-8 mm. 

 thick at the base, thinning out toward the margin. The tubes are 

 whitish, 2-3 mm. long and 5-6 in the space of a millimeter. They 

 are very slender, tubular, the mouth somewhat enlarged, the margin 

 of the tubes pale cream color and minutely mealy or furfuraceous, 

 with numerous irregular, roughened threads. The tubes often stand 

 somewhat separated, areas being undeveloped or younger, so that 

 the surface of the under side is not regular. The tubes are not so 

 crowded as is usual in the Fistulina hepatica. They are not decurrent, 

 but end abruptly near the stem. The spores are subglobose, 3 yu in 

 diameter. The stem tapers downward, is whitish below, and near 

 the pileus the color changes rather abruptly to the same tint as the 

 pileus. The stem is sometimes branched, and two or three caps 

 present, or the caps themselves may be joined, as well as the stems, 

 so that occasionally very irregular forms are developed, but there is 

 always the peculiar character of the attachment of the stem to the 

 side of the cap. 



Figure 180 is from plants (No 3676, C. U. herbarium) collected 



