MYCOLOC-ICAL NOTES 
C. G. LLOYD 
Page 1023 
Schwsinitz referred to Pomes fomentarius the common Fomes 
applanatus or rather the American form of it which is also called 
Pomes leucophaeus. Berkeley, in his first British work, takes Fomes 
fomentarius in the sense of Pomes applanatus, and the only specimen 
in his herbarium of his naming as Pomes fomentarius is a slice of 
applanatus. I think Berkeley at a later date got a correct idea of 
Pomes fomentarius. It is needless to say Massee never got any idea 
beyond Berkeley’s little herbarium slice, and in all his books he has 
based his idea of Fomes fomentarius on this misnamed specimen. Cooke 
never seemed to have any idea of Pomes fomentarius whatever and of 
twenty-five specimens named by him that I have noted not one is right. 
It is not very far from Paris to Upsala, but a man could 
travel over this distance and find three entirely different plants 
known locally as Pomes igniarius. In Prance it was a local tradition 
that Pomes robustus was Fomes igniarius. In England, following 
Berkeley, they call Pomes pomaceus, Fomes igniarius. In Sweden they 
had it right. 
Our American authors, Ellis and Peck, seem to have had Pomes 
fomentarius right, and Murrill knew the species correctly, though he 
made a bad mess of its spores, copying apparently from Massee's in¬ 
accurate account, and a bad mess in his genus discovery, putting 
Pomes fomentarius and Pomes applanatus in the same ''genus", using 
the word genus in the distorted sense that Murrill uses it. The 
German and French botanists have had Pomes fomentarius right and all 
of the many German exsiccatae I have noted are correct. 
There is no more reason for confusing these three species 
than there would be to confuse an oak tree, a beech tree and a pine 
tree, and yet the history of mycology shows there has not been a 
single prominent author who had the three species correct, but they 
are perfectly competent to write books on mycology, and from such 
books students are supposed to be able to learn the names of fungi. 
OUR YELLOW TREMELLAS 
"NAEMATELIA Q,UERCINA" FROM W. C. COKER, NORTH CAROLINA.- 
This was recently published as Naematelia quercina, It had been sub¬ 
mitted to me as "Tremella mesenterica?" and from the dried specimen 
I thought this was correct. On soaking it now I think it would be 
better referred to Tremella aurantia, but it is only a question of 
color. The color of the soaked plant is pale yellow with Gnly a 
suggestion of orange, in fact, between lutescens and mesenterica, and 
in my opinion it is too close to Tremella aurantia to be named as a 
new species in a genus where it does not belong. That Tremella 
lutescens and mesenterica are the same as Mr. Coker thinks I do not 
believe, nor would any one else who has collected both as they grow 
in Europe. In a letter to me some years ago Bresadola advanced the 
view that lutescens might be the earlier stage of Tremella mesenteri¬ 
ca but that is only a theory and has not been proved. There is no 
confusing the two plants if one is familiar with them as they grow. 
Mycologists in Prance who have collected and recorded Tremella 
lutescens and Tremella mesenterica many times often on the same da}^, 
and consider them entirely different, will be interested I am sure 
in learning that an American who never saw but one in his life has 
published the learned opinion that they are the same species probably. 
Persoon's original figure of Tremella lutescens is not good but it 
