New North American Fungi. 



37 



Secotium among the Gastromycetes. I should place it next to 

 Lentinus. 



3. Lentodium squamulosum. . — Pileus fleshy-coriaceous, orbi- 

 cular, more or less irregular, thin, umbilicate, covered with small 

 appressed hairy scales, gray or rufous to blackish in color. Stipe 

 tough, solid, scaly as the pileus, central or eccentric, short or elong- 

 ated, often more or less deformed. Hymenium a thick stratum of 

 irregular pores descending from the hymenophore and adnate to the 

 stipe; the pores branch and anastomose, are traversed by veins and 

 divided into cells by cross-partitions. The lower surface of the 

 hymenium is closed by a thick white floccose membrane, which after 

 maturity splits irregularly in a radiate manner. Spores white, elliptic- 

 oblong, 5 6x2^-3 mic. 



Growing on old logs and stumps. Pileus 2-5 cm. in diameter 

 and about a centimeter in thickness, the stipe various in length 

 sometimes very short. The first mention of this curious production 

 is in Lea's Catalogue in which it is considered an abnormal form of 

 Len'inus tigrinus, Bull. It is referred to again in Berkeley's Notices 

 under No. 104. I meet with this fungus nearly every season and it 

 always has the form above described. I have never found a specimen 

 of Lentinus tigrinus in this region and I have no information that the 

 present fungus has ever occurred in Europe. I am of the opinion 

 that it is a perfectly normal production ; if not the normal and abnor- 

 mal condition must at sometime occur together and the abnormal 

 form must be accounted for. 



4. Polyporus circumstans. — Pileus hard and woody, pulvi- 

 nate to ungulate, thick, more or less encircling the stem; the surface 

 brown or blackish, rough, concentrically furrowed ; the pores very 

 long, minute, rotund, white within and without. Spores oblong, 

 even, hyaline, 6-7x4 5 mic. 



Growing on Shepherdia argentea Nutt. in South Dakota, 

 Prof. Thomas A. Williams. Pileus 4-8 cm. in width and 2-5 cm. in 

 height or thickness, seated upon the upright stem or branch and some- 

 times encircling it half way or more. The substance of the pileus is 

 nearly all the white or slightly discolored tubules which are indistinctly 

 stratified; these are protected on the upper sloping surface by a thin 

 brown crust much roughened and usually with several concentric 

 furrows The nearest relative growing in this country is Polyporus 

 pi/iicola, Fr. 



