REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST I917 8l 



Soft decaying wood of deciduous trees. Osceola. July. 



The pores are sometimes collected in little heaps or tubercles as in 

 P . molluscus and P . v a i 1 1 a n t i i . In the dried state they 

 are slightly tinged with creamy yellow. 



Notes. This is one of the earlier species of Poria described by 

 Peck, and the description is entirely inadequate for the recognition 

 of the species. The type collection is rather scanty, consisting of 

 about eight small fragments of the substratum, the largest of which 

 is only 4 cm in diameter. This larger fragment is fairly well cov- 

 ered by the fungus (plate 5, figure 8), but the others bear only 

 small scattered fructifications, the diameter of which may not exceed 



5 mm. In other words, the fungus varies in size from 5 mm to 

 about 4 cm broad. The color of the hymenial surface varies from 

 pale smoke gray to pinkish buff or cinnamon buff. The subiculum 

 is fertile to the margin. The margin is not fimbriate and there are 

 no rhizomorphic strands. The fructification is extremely thin, not 

 more than one-fourth of a millimeter thick, and no subiculum is 

 discernible except with a hand lens. The tubes are extremely 

 short. Their mouths are nearly circular in outline and average 4 to 



6 to a millimeter. In the thinner parts of the subiculum these tubes 

 appear as small holes entirely through the fructification. The dis- 

 sepiments are rather thin but entire. There is no sheen or silkiness 

 to the hymenium. 



The spores are oblong or short-cylindrical, sometimes curved, 

 and sometimes pointed at the base. They are colorless, smooth, 

 and measure 4 to 5 /x in length and 1 to 2 ji in breadth (plate 6, 

 figure 5)- They are thus of a somewhat different type from the 

 small, allantoid spores such as are found in Poria odor a and 

 are characteristic of such species of Polyporus as the P o 1 y porus 

 versicolor and P . chioneus group. The basidia are 2 

 to 3 fx in diameter. Their origin is at times rather peculiar and 

 unl ; ke that of any other species known to the writer. Instead of 

 the basidium arising terminally from more or less elongated hyphal 

 branches, they here often arise in a series of as many as ten or even 

 more from one side of a hypha in the hymenial region, as shown 

 in the illustration (plate 6, figure 2). Usually, or perhaps always, 

 the end of the hypha is broken up into a number of short cells each 

 of which gives rise to a basidium, though this fact could not be 

 determined in all cases. In many cases the basidium is cut off 

 from its basal cell by a cross wall, though this was not always evi- 

 dent. This manner of origin of the basidia is frequently seen in 

 crushed preparations of the hymenium, and in several cases spores 



