Fungi of the Marshall Islands — Rogers 
count for some of the reports of that species 
from Pacific lands. Fries (1838: 555) lists 
A. ornata as a possible synonym of A. mesen¬ 
teric a, with the note, "sec. Montagn. non 
differt” (Montagne having, it would appear, 
studied Persoon’s specimens). Material at 
hand of A. mesenterica shows a much thicker 
and more deeply pilose basidiocarp, with the 
hyphae of the medullary layer much more 
highly gelatinized and more widely spaced, 
and with an ochraceous, rather than chiefly 
brown, dorsal surface. The two species are 
undoubtedly closely related; on the basis of 
available specimens, I should consider them 
amply distinct. There seem to be no zonate 
species described in the genus other than 
A. mesenterica and A. ornata; the latter is as 
well characterized as any member of Auricu- 
laria, and there can be little doubt that the 
collections here cited belong to Persoon’s 
species. 
The fungus is quite as certainly Lyon’s 
Auricularia adnata. The type of that species, 
collected "on Tournejortia trees" on Pal¬ 
myra Island, 1,100 miles south of Oahu, is 
not at hand; but Dr. H. L. Lyon has recently 
confirmed Bergman’s identification of the 
two later Palmyra collections (from the same 
substratum), indicating that the specimen 
now marked "A" is the more typical. These 
are indistinguishable from the Marshall 
Islands material. Other adnate species have 
been described in Auricularia; of these only 
A. peltata Lloyd seems well enough char¬ 
acterized to be recognizable without special 
study. Material at hand of this species shows 
uniformly smaller and more strongly venu- 
lose basidiocarps attached over nearly all 
the dorsal surface by the uniformly pallid 
tomentum; it is quite a different fungus from 
A. ornata. It is at least odd, if not significant 
of relationship, that Lloyd’s type, as well as 
one of the specimens more adequately de¬ 
scribed by Ahmad (1945: 242) grew on 
Cordia "myxa” —like Messerschmidia, an 
arborescent member of the Boraginaceae. 
105 
29. Septobasidium sp. (bogoriensi 
affin.); cf. Boedijn and Steinmann, Buiten- 
zorg Jard. Bot. Jour. 3 ser. 11: 205, fig. 25, 
26; pi. 18 (b), (c), 1931; Couch, Genus 
Septobasidium 213, pi. 61, fig. 3-10; 103, 
fig. 4-7; 104, fig. 10-12, 1938. 
On living prop roots, and more rarely on 
bark of living trunks, of Pandanus pulp os us 
and Pandanus spp. Namu: Namu I., 1421, 
Leuen I., 1417; Ailinglapalap, 1480; Jaluit, 
1474, 1577, 1578; Ebon, IX.9.46, 1335, 
1336, 1389 . 
This fungus formed conspicuous lichen¬ 
like encrusting patches, light gray or lila- 
ceous-gray, on a considerable part of the 
Pandanus trees on the islands where it oc¬ 
curred; the quantity of material collected was 
limited only by the time that could be profit¬ 
ably spent cutting it off the trunks, and the 
space available for drying. Although super¬ 
ficially resembling the grayish lichens which 
occurred abundantly in the same places, the 
Septobasidium could readily be recognized 
as a member of that genus by the irregular 
discontinuous development of its margin, by 
the evident elevation of its surface on short 
brownish pillars (whereas the lichens clung 
closely to the bark), and by the brown cen¬ 
ters of the older fructifications. It occurred 
on all the islands visited south of Kwajalein; 
whether it is found there also is not known, 
since the two islets of Kwajalein Atoll on 
which the party landed were almost com¬ 
pletely denuded of native vegetation. Al¬ 
though a careful search for the Septobasidium 
was everywhere made, none was discovered 
north of Kwajalein. On the drier atolls, 
such as Ailuk and Wotje, where the lichen 
incrustation was also sparse or wanting, this 
lack was to be expected; but although on 
Mej it the vegetation and lichens indicated a 
climate fully as favorable for the growth of 
fungi as that of Namu, the Septobasidium, 
it seems safe to say, does not occur there. 
Some reported hosts of S. bogoriense, such as 
Citrus and Hibiscus, grow on islands where 
