131—NOTES ON SOME COMMON PLANTS. 
The following notes are based on determinations made by Bres- 
adola and Patouillard. They illustrate the necessity of studying our 
plants principally in relations to the plants of Europe. 
132—FAVOEUS EUROP^EUS. 
A dozen or more species of Favolus are credited to this country 
most of them being described from dried specimens sent to Berkeley 
and Montague. There are many specimens in our collection from var¬ 
ious collectors but with the exception of one from Louisiana they are 
all referable to the above species. It is certainly the only common 
species with us. When the plant first develops it is covered with a 
bright reddish tawny cuticle which peels off or fades out as the plant 
becomes old. Late in the season we often pick up specimens that are 
almost white. We venture the assertion that most of our “species” 
named by Berkeley and Montague are founded on different stages of this 
same plant. Others we have reasons to believe are on various forms 
of our common Polyporus arcularius. In our literature the plant is 
usually called Favolus Canadensis but it is now well established that it 
does not differ from the European species. 
133—PLEUROTUS NIDULANS. 
This plant for many years was called in this country Panus dor¬ 
salis, a reference originally made we believe by Berkeley. That our 
plant is the same as nidulans of Fries is confirmed by Bresadola, and 
is so accepted in the recent writings of Peck. Although Schweinitz 
knew it, the identity had been lost and credit is due to Morgan for the 
clew that led to the facts. I think however after carefully studying 
Bose’ figure and description that he really had an unusual form of it, 
for most of his description applies to the plant and the most striking 
difference is the short stem in his illustration. 
The usual form of the plant is broadly sessile; we have a phot¬ 
ograph of a plant tending towards spathulate; and Peck states “rarely 
narrowed behind into a short stem-like base.” 
There is room for a difference of opinion as to the genus to 
which to refer this plant. The spores are pink and Peck places it in 
Claudopus. It unquestionably belongs there from Fries’ definition of 
the Hyporhodii “spores roseae vel rubiginosae. ’ ’ Atkinson describes the 
spores of Hyporhodii “rose color, pink, flesh or salmon color.” All 
the species we have noted, Pluteus and Volvaria, have spores remark¬ 
ably uniform in color, deep salmon. To our mind the color of the 
spores of this species is much closer to those of the white spored series 
through such connecting species as sapidus and subpalmatus than 
to the salmon color we associate with the Hyporhodii. We would 
therefore call it a Pleurotus. 
The flesh is firm and tenacious and from this consideration the 
plant is not far out of place in Panus, indeed it is as tough as some 
common plants generally referred to Lentinus. The borderland be¬ 
tween Panus and Pleurotus, as between Marasmius and Collybia, is 
59 
