FOMES 373 



bodies of the fungus should be removed and burned, and the 

 parts exposed coated as mentioned above. Too frequently 

 old fallen trunks, bearing numerous sporophores or fruiting 

 bodies of the fungus, are left lying about. All such should 

 be removed at once, to prevent infection of neighbouring 

 trees by spores. 



The fact that the fungus grows on dead wood is often used 

 as an argument that the fungus is harmless, and only grows 

 on dead or dying trees. This, however, is a mistake. In 

 common with all wound-fungi, the present can live perfectly 

 well as a saprophyte, but when occasion offers, it enters into 

 living tissues through a wound, and continues to grow as a 

 true parasite. 



Hartig and Somerville, Diseases of Trees , p. 206 (1894). 

 Tubeuf, Diseases of Plants. 



False tinder fungus (Fomes igniarius. Fries.) is a wound- 

 parasite most frequent on the oak, but also attacks various 

 fruit-trees, beech, willow, alder, etc. Hartig states that it is 

 also parasitic on the larch. The spores germinate on a 

 wound, and the mycelium spreads quickly in the wood, which 

 changes to a brown colour at first, and by degrees becomes 

 yellowish-white when disintegration sets in. The tannin 

 dissolved in the cell-sap is absorbed by the mycelium, and 

 after undergoing metabolic changes serves as food for the 

 fungus. The mycelium, after extending for some time in the 

 wood, spreads into the bark and produces the large, hard, 

 concentrically grooved fruiting bodies on the surface of the 

 trunk. 



Bursting through the bark as a roundish knob, it gradually 

 assumes a hoof-like form, surface brown or almost black when 

 old, concentrically grooved, cuticle very hard, 3-6 in. broad, 

 2 in. thick; flesh rusty, zoned; tubes 1-2 in. long, stratose; 

 spores subglobose, hyaline, 6-7 p diam. 



Allied to P. fomentarius, but a thinner plant, cuticle and 

 flesh hard, tubes filled with white mycelium when old. 



The hard flesh renders this fungus unsuitable for making 

 tinder, felt, etc. 



The preventive measures given under P. fomentarius are 

 equally applicable to this species. 



Conifer root rot (Fomes annosus^ Fries., = Trametes radi 

 ciperda, Hartig) is certainly the most destructive of the large 



