Fungi of the Marshall Islands'— Rogers 
collections made on Jaluit, however, show in 
varying degrees a more luxuriant growth; 
the separate lenticular or tuberculiform ba- 
sidiocarps are confluent to form not merely 
a reticulate aggregation, or the thin film 
which seems to be the most homogeneous 
fructification developed in temperate lands, 
but a tough, separable membrane, held to¬ 
gether by a dense subicular layer, almost 
cartilaginous in consistency, of conglutinate 
hyphae. In some of the specimens this layer 
on drying has remained intact, forming 
a hyaline, translucent pellicle, glistening 
(under the binocular) from light reflected 
from the sides of the minute polygonal 
areoles which represent the originally sepa¬ 
rate basidiocarps, and from their very short 
narrowed stipe-like bases, which remain 
separate even in the older parts of the fruc¬ 
tification, and which can be made out through 
the continuous surface. The spores and ba- 
sidia of the Jaluit material also average 
somewhat larger than those of most other 
specimens. There is, however, considerable 
overlapping in these as in other respects; 
the best developed of the Jaluit specimens is 
well matched by one from Hawaii, while the 
more delicate specimens or areas are not 
distinguishable from some of the Hawaiian 
and North American ones. It is certain that 
conditions of temperature and humidity on 
Jaluit at the time of collection were ex¬ 
tremely favorable for the development of 
tremellaceous fungi, and to the weather may 
be ascribed the extreme forms here noted. 
26. Guepinia Spathularia (Schw.) 
Fries; Coker, Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. Jour. 
25: 177, pi. 23, fig. 14; 51; 64, fig. 5, 6, 9, 
1920; Brasfield, Amer. Midland Nat. 20: 
221, pi. 3, fig. 64-66, 1938; Lloydia 1: 
155, 1938; Martin, Iowa Univ. Studies in 
Nat. Hist. 18 (3): 30, 1944. Merulius 
Spathularia Schw., Naturf. Gesell. zu Leip¬ 
zig Schr. 1: 92, pi. 2, fig. 1-3, 1822. 
On bare wood, or growing out through 
fissures in the bark, of Pandanus sp. Utirik, 
101 
1554; Ailuk: Marme I., 1750; Mejit, 1440, 
1455, 1508. 
Guepinia Spathularia as here treated 
includes all those fungi with fructifica¬ 
tions cartilaginous-gelatinous in consistency, 
orange or brownish-orange in color, flabelli- 
form or incised-flabelliform, tomentose on 
the compressed stipe and one surface of the 
expanded summit, with forked basidia and 
one-septate spores. All of the Marshallese 
collections have the basidiocarps less ob¬ 
tuse at the distal margin, more translucent, 
brighter (and redder) in color, and less 
tomentose on the sterile surface, than any 
material at hand from temperate regions, 
and than any shown in the illustrations cited. 
Microscopically, although the spores may be 
slightly more slender, no significant differ¬ 
ences appear to exist. A considerable num¬ 
ber of species have been described from the 
tropics, most of them differing little from 
G. Spathularia. Several recent authors have 
indicated doubt of the autonomy of certain 
or all of these species; and it seems neither 
necessary nor prudent, in the absence of any 
considerable amount of tropical material for 
comparison, to attempt at present a decision 
on the distinctness of these segregates or of 
the Marshall Islands material. 
27. Auricularia ampla Pers. in Gaudi- 
chaud, Bot. Freycinet Voyage autour du 
Monde . . . Uranie et . . . Physicienne 177, 
1827. Exidia ampla (Pers.) Lev., Ann. Sci. 
Nat. Bot. 3 ser. 5: 159, 1846. Hirneola 
ampla (Pers.) Fries, K. Vetensk. Akad. 
Hand!., 1848: 146, 1849. 
Fructifications when fresh thin, flexible, leathery- 
gelatinous, the dorsal surface uniformly pilose, 
cinereous-gray, -pink, or -buff, or in old specimens 
fuscous, glabrescent, the hymenial surface more or 
less pruinose, dull flesh-color, purplish-rosy, dull 
purplish, or in older specimens blackish; solitary 
or gregarious to densely imbricate-caespitose, 
eccentrically peltate or sessile by a narrowed pos¬ 
terior margin or produced into a short stipe-like 
sterile base, up to 5 (rarely -20) cm. in breadth, 
convex and even or slightly plicate above, cupulate 
and even or in larger specimens shallowly venulose 
below; when dry thin, flexible, quite fragile, trans- 
