Notes and Brief Articles 



39 



resembling that of slippery elm. Dr. Stocker not only tested the 

 specimens himself, but submitted them to two drugs clerks inde- 

 pendently and both of them promptly agreed with him. Dr. 

 Stocker calls attention to the fact that Massee says that the odor 

 of this species is spicy and W. Smith states that it smells pleas- 

 antly of anise. 



Romell, in a recent number of the Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift, 

 explains the brown powder occurring on the upper surface of 

 hymenophores of Ganoderma lucidum and Elfvingia applanata as 

 true spores from the basidia wafted upward by currents of air 

 and allowed to settle on the hymenophores and nearby objects, 

 where they adhere by means of their gelatinous coats. This 

 would upset the conidia theory. The air currents are explained 

 by Romell as follows : 



" It is perhaps not unreasonable to suppose that from the ground 

 heated during a hot day arise during a following cold and calm 

 night upwardly directed air currents, which though very feeble 

 and perhaps not perceptible to our senses, yet are strong enough 

 to force the falling spores upwards, so that these are caused to 

 hover in the air above their native place a more or less long while 

 ere they are allowed to fall again and land on the upper side of 

 objects lying in their way." 



A splendid specimen of Inonotus dryophilus was obtained on 

 December 4, 1916, from the trunk of a living white oak which 

 stands in the Hemlock Forest near the Waterfall. It grew about 

 25 feet from the base of the tree and emerged from a small knot- 

 hole. In the autumn of 1908, a smaller, more resupinate specimen 

 was taken from near the base of the same tree and reproduced in 

 color in Mycologia for May, 1909. During the intervening years, 

 a few very small hymenophores have appeared at various times at 

 different knot-holes on the trunk, but so far as known the tree has 

 never produced a specimen of such proportions as the one just 

 collected. The trunk of the tree must be badly decayed by this 

 time, and many of the lower branches have disappeared. 



