174 
Mr. FrEULHVKILER to whom 1 showed the specimens, said he had 
seen the fungus in Sumatra on a few trees and had noticed that it 
was all in a line of trees as if the spores had been blown along by 
the wind. He found that by scraping the bark and treating with 
copper sulphate and lime. Of course a pest like this should be 
looked for and vigorously treated, the destroyed bark cut away 
and burned, affected boughs removed and sulphate of copper 
liberally used. It is probable that too close planting may be res- 
ponsible for the development of this fungus, as the similar one on 
the Sir obilanthes was in the dark part of the bush where the 
boughs were crowded together. 
% Fames semitostus . — Some eight or nine years ago the coolies 
carelessly made a large bonfire close to a row of Para rubber 
trees, of fairly large size, the trunk of one of which was badly 
burnt and another considerably injured. Both trees gradually died 
and were removed. But the next two or three trees on either side 
became sick and eventually a large mass of the fruiting stage of 
Fames semitostus was seen at the base of the trunk just pushed up 
above the ground and the roots being destroyed the trees perished. 
This year two more smaller trees have gone in the same way, and 
it is clear that the fungus has been slowly spreading underground. 
Attempts were made to check it by treatment with copper sulphate 
and lime, but as the fungus had got a strong hold of the roots of 
the tree treated and it was very difficult to get at all the infected 
part, this was not successful. The development of the damage 
was very slow, and very different from the rapid growth of such 
underground fungi as Rosellinia. Nor did it attack any young 
plants, seedlings or any other herbaceous things on the ground as 
the true root fungi do. 
The fruiting part ( sporophore ) ol Fames semitostus is a broad flat 
rounded plate often very irregular in form, usually reniform 4 to 6 
inches across, and of an orange red colour beneath paler above, 
where it is marked with rings and line stria;, beneath can be seen 
with a lens the honeycomb-like structure of the hymeneal surface. 
The texture of the fungus is tough and it possesses a strong mush- 
room-like scent. The sporophores growing close together often 
form large irregular masses. 
This fungus is very common on decaying stumps of all kinds ol 
trees and is properly speaking a dead wood feeder, but like a 
number of allied species attack also living trees. 
As a disease-fungus 1 would class this as contagious as opposed 
to an infectious fungus, as it appears to spread from root to root 
in the ground without being dangerously dispersed through its 
spores. A dead stump may be attacked above or just below the 
oround, and the mycelium spreading along the decaying roots may 
come into contact with those of a living tree and so the attack is 
spread. These contagious fungi are more easy to deal with than 
the infectious ones, of which the spores are blown from tree to tree 
and attack the plant where they light, (as in the fungus previous!}' 
