364 FUNGUS-FLORA. 



**** Veil absent; gills deeply decurrent; pileus lateral, 

 sessile, or produced behind into a short, oblique, stem-like 

 base. 



II. DiMIDIATI. 



Pileus distinctly lateral, not marginate behind ; not resupi- 

 nate at first. 



III. EESUPINiTI. 



Pilaris at first resupinate, then reflexed, sessile ; gills radi- 

 ating from an exoentric point. 



* Pileus fleshy, uniform in texture. 



** Pileus fleshy, striate, upper layer gelatinous, or, covered 

 with a viscid pellicle. 



*** Pileus membranaceous, not viscid. 



EXCENTEICI. 

 * Veil forming a ring. 



Pleurotus corticatus. Tr. 



Pileus 4—8 in. across, flesh thick, hard, white, convex then 

 expanded and almost disciform, horizontal, always entire, 

 everywhere covered with a dense greyish down when joung, 

 and as the pileus expands the down becomes broken up into 

 floccose squamules on a whitish ground, margin strongly 

 incurved when young; gills very decurrent, anastomosing 

 behind, also dichotomouxly branched, rather distant, white 

 but becoming yellowish when old ; stem 1-3 in. long, up to 

 1 in. thick, solid, hard, rooting, more or less exoentric, curved 

 and ascending, aluiost equal, squamulosely fibrillose, white ; 

 ring cottony-floccose, thick, white, torn into shreds that at 

 first adhere to the steiii and margii.i of pileus, but finally 

 disappear, 



Agaricus (Pleurotus) corticatus, Fries, Epicr., p. 129; Cke., 

 Hdbk., p. 101 ; Cke., Illustr., pi. 290. 



On trunks. 



