44 Notices of British Fungi. 



The lirst growth of this highly curious species consists of small 

 erect scattered tufts of radiating strigose fibres, somewhat resem- 

 bling those which clothe the pileus of Pol. vulpinus and its allies, 

 but finer. Many of these remain barren, and would be considered 

 as an Ozonium ; but under favourable circumstances a distinct hy- 

 menium 1^ line thick, with a free even abrupt vertical circumfer- 

 ence is formed in the centre of each tuft. Numbers of these at 

 length become confluent, the strigas towards the centre of the mass 

 are obliterated, while those towards the circumference form an erect 

 fringe to the patch, the edges of the hymenium coming occasion- 

 ally adnate with the strigse. If the whole be now removed from the 

 wood, the base of each original fasciculus is often visible. Pores so 

 minute as to be quite invisible to the naked eye, angular, sometimes 

 a little sinuous with a rather ragged edge ; dissepiments extremely 

 thin. The colour of the whole is pale ochraceous, with more or less 

 of a tawny tinge when dry. The specimens with which I met had 

 been exposed to the weather for some time, and probably, when quite 

 fresh, were nearly white. The species appears to me quite distinct, 

 and its mode of growth very peculiar. 



Tab. II. fig. 3. a. Various states of Polyporus cinctus, nat. size; b. a portion 

 of the hymenium from the centre of one of the fascicles ; c, a vertical sec- 

 tion of a portion of the hymenium at the circumference of a patch ; d. ori- 

 fices of pores ; b. c. d. more or less magnified. 



7- Thelephora puteana, Schum. Fr. Syst. Myc. vol. i. p. 448. — 

 On deal in a closet with a brick floor in a dairy, with a northern as- 

 pect, King's Cliffe. 



I cannot refer my plant accurately to any of the varieties de- 

 scribed by Fries in his Elenchus, the specimens themselves vary- 

 ing from almost perfect evenness to considerable inequality of sur- 

 face, with various tints of olive, tawny, ferruginous, cinereous, &c. 

 in the same patch. Those which grew on the under side of the shelf 

 were the most rugged, and the patches less continuous, while others 

 which spread from the perpendicular painted front horizontally over 

 the brick floor, were almost even with a broad soft ochraceous mar- 

 gin. When placed after being gummed on paper, and preserved in 

 the herbarium for several weeks in the original locality, where the 

 fungus had been entirely destroyed by a solution of corrosive sub- 

 limate, and the wood work in consequence in an unusually damp sea- 

 son having become quite dry, which before was constantly dripping, 

 the whole in twelve hours recovered its original fleshy appearance, 

 and was studded with drops of coffee-coloured moisture. It should 

 be observed that my plant when rubbed has a disagreable fishy odour. 



