104 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. 1, April, 1947 
would be at least as red as Purplish Vina- 
ceous. 
28. Auricularia ornata Pers. in 
Gaudichaud, Bot. Freycinet Voyage autour 
du Monde . . . Uranie et . . . Physicienne 
177, pi. 2, fig. 4, 1827. A. adnata Lyon in 
Pvock, Hawaii Coll. Publ. Bui. 4: 33, 1916. 
Fructification when fresh tough fleshy- to car¬ 
tilaginous-gelatinous, adnate over much of its area 
or centrally peltate-rooting, disciform, lobed- 
disciform, or by confluence elongate, 0.5-7.5 cm. 
in diameter, the margins at first closely appressed, 
later often reflexed to 0.5 cm., the lower (hyme- 
nial) surface pruinose, soft brown (Pale Brownish 
Drab to Natal Brown), in young specimens 
smooth to slightly rugose, in older with strong, 
irregularly forking, vein-like thickenings more or 
less radially arranged, the upper surface where 
free coarsely pilose, zonate, the zones alternately 
of long and of short hairs, mostly dark brown 
(Snuff Brown to Bister), but interspersed with 
light bands (about Pinkish Buff), in young speci¬ 
mens with appressed margins the pilosity shown 
only as a narrow buffy margin; when dry hard, in 
consistency like dried cartilage, the hymenium 
strongly pruinose, plumbeous (Cinereous to Dark 
Plumbeous), with younger portions lighter and 
browner (Drab-Gray); in section composed of a 
hymenial layer about 85 A* thick, a medullary layer 
about 1000 At thick, and an abhymenial layer about 
30 A 1 thick; the hymenial layer consisting of a pig¬ 
mented superficial portion about 15 v thick com¬ 
posed of the indistinct, branching ends of para- 
physes 1-1.5 ^ in diameter, and a basidial portion; 
the medullary layer consisting of hyphae 3-9 A* in 
diameter with irregular, often open clamp connec¬ 
tions and greatly gelatinized walls, densely com¬ 
pacted and perpendicular to the surface in the 
lower and upper 100 At, looser and more or less 
parallel to the surface in the middle; the abhy¬ 
menial layer brown, nearly opaque, compact and 
(in the free parts of the basidiocarp) supporting 
a pilose layer about 70-300 /t thick (according to 
the surface zonation) of free brown hyphae; 
basidia linear or often narrowly claviform or 
basally ventricose, 3-septate, 52-70 X 5.5-7 (rarely 
-8.5) /t; spores thick-allantoid, with stout truncate- 
apiculus, 12.5-15.5 (-17) X 5.5—6.5 A*. 
On bark and decorticate wood of Messer - 
schmidia argentea. 
line islands (Pacific): Palmyra I., 
VIII.20.24, H. F. Bergman [A], [£], det. 
by Lyon as A. adnata. 
marshall islands: Utirik, 1549; Ailuk: 
Marab I., 1568, Ailuk I., 1518; Wotje: 
Riri I., 1372; Namu: Leuen I., 1408. 
A leathery growth, brown above and 
below when moist and active, apparently 
limited to the single substratum Messer- 
schmidia (= Tournejortia ) argentea, and 
to hard, elevated, little decayed branches of 
that species. The earliest of the Marshalls 
collections was made in a soaking rain, and 
the fungus was at first taken to be a some¬ 
what thicker and softer relative of Stereum 
hirsutum. The highly characteristic brown 
color disappears from the hymenium on 
drying, and is replaced by a pruinose slate 
not too different from the appearance of 
other species of Auricularia. Since A. ornata 
is one of the far too numerous lost species, 
the original description is here reproduced: 
A[uricularia} pileo dimidiato reflexo tomen- 
toso, zonis fuscis pallidisque variegato, inferne 
venoso nigricante. Pers. 
In insulis Mariannis. 
Cette plante est Tune des plus jolies especes du 
genre. Elle a par sa partie superieure quelque 
similitude avec Vauricularia mesenterica, Pers. 
Mycol. Europ. 1, p. 97. Mais sa surface inferieure 
est garnie de veines comme dans Vauricularia sam- 
buci (tremella auricula, Linn.). P. 
The illustration shows a dimidiate basidio¬ 
carp with prominent zonation on the dorsal 
surface, more like a sketch of Coriolus versi¬ 
color than like any Auricularia, and certainly 
not remotely like the almost resupinate fun¬ 
gus on Messerschmidia. But having soaked 
a dried specimen to secure a spore-print, I 
happened to pick away a few marginal bits 
of the bark to which it was attached, in order 
to discover how much of the dorsal surface 
was free from the substratum. The surface 
revealed was zonate not merely because 
of the varying lengths of the hairs which 
covered it, but "variegated by fuscous and 
pallid bands,” exactly as described and illus¬ 
trated by Persoon. It seems likely that the 
material from which the description was 
drawn up either had been removed from its 
substratum by the collector or had been pried 
away, as was mine, to discover the character 
of the dorsal surface. The resemblance noted 
to Auricularia mesenterica may possibly ac- 
