326 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
These Fungi we call Sap-balls, or Boleti. One is edible ( B . edidis), 
and of a pale colour ; another is very poisonous and dark tinted 
(B. luridus); the apricot-coloured (B . piperatus) is peppery ; and 
we cannot recommend the flavour of the gay yellow one ( B . 
luteus). In the Boletus family the tubes of the hymenium can be 
separated from one another. Not so in the next family, that of 
the Polypores. These grow occasionally with stems, as in the 
P. varius, which I found adorning pollard willows on the 
banks of the Wye ; elegant in form, like a scallop-shell, with 
the hinge prolonged into a stalk, and the pileus shaded richly 
with umber and crimson ; but more frequently they are stem- 
less, growing like shelves and brackets on tree-stumps. Of these 
the P. squamosus is a very handsome member, spreading to the 
size of from one to two feet, blotched with brown, and forming a 
remarkable object on the bole of ash-trees. A very firm, woody, 
fragrant • species grows in the form of a bracket on old willows. 
I have found it in Wiltshire, Herefordshire, and Kent — P. sali- 
cinus. A minute plant of this family, P. abietinus, adorns fir 
posts, &c. It grows flat at first, and then the edges curl over 
in the form of frills ; the edges and the hymenium are violet, the 
pileus white and cottony. Some species, as P. annosus , grow 
on the ground; the hymenium white, and the edges, which 
presently turn up, a full chestnut brown. 
Few old stumps in woods or on lawms are quite destitute 
of the zoned frills of the Merulius Gorium. The pores here are 
not equally distributed over the surface, but are arranged in 
branching lines. In texture it resembles parchment. This 
plant is brother to the Dry-rot, which so constantly brings ruin in 
its wake ; terrible, less in its perfect state, with fully developed 
pileus and hymenium, than in its spawn condition, when it 
eats into wood, rendering it rotten and crumbling, and showing 
no respect for the most honoured edifice. “ It is because 
the Dry-rot has got in,” was the answer returned to my question, 
why the wall of the curator’s house at the Edinburgh Botanic 
Gardens was taken down; and on putting a similar query to work- 
men engaged in a Kentish church, I was again told, “ The 
Dry-rot has eaten away both the pews and the flooring.” From 
the perfect plant drops of moisture exude; hence its name, 
M. lachrymans. They might well be tears of repentance shed 
over its many misdeeds. 
The Fistulina hepatica, with its shapeless form and blood- 
red pileus, is found, in the later summer months, growing on 
trees. It has been recently found in Longleat Park, Wiltshire, 
and Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. In this genus the pores 
are not only separable, as in Boletus, but distinct and tubiform. 
It forms wholesome food ; and I have known persons who have 
eaten it without bad results, and who describe it as resembling 
