176 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
spore; the germ tubes may or may not bear damps, but in either case 
conidia are copiously produced, and in wood cultures very extensive 
basidiosporic hymenia are developed. 
Corticium effuscatum Cooke & Ellis. 
PI. 21, fig. 74-95; pi. 22, fig. 96-105. 
The writer collected this species in abundance in several localities 
near Cambridge, Massachusetts, on fallen logs of Quercus, Populus, 
Acer, etc. It proved to be an extremely interesting species for on 
cultivation the mycelium developed not only chlamydospores but also 
an abundance of conidia of the Oedocephalum type, similar to those 
found by Brefeld (’ 89 ) in Polyporus annosus. 
This species was described by Cooke & Ellis in “New Jersey fungi/’ 
(Grevillea, vol. 9, p. 103, 1881). It appears to be rather widely dis¬ 
tributed in the eastern United States. The hymenium is effused, 
sometimes forming broad encrusting areas. The color when fresh is 
reddish tawny to reddish orange, but fades to a dirty pallid ocher 
when dry. The young hymenium is fragile, waxy, and smooth, but is 
soon rendered pulverulent by the discharged spores, great numbers of 
which become embedded in the hymenium as the latter increases in 
thickness. The clavate, 4-spored basidia (pi. 21, fig. 74) are about 
5.5- 7 y in diameter, and project 8-12 y from the surface. The basidio- 
spores are spherical to ellipsoidal, sometimes slightly inequilateral, 
5.5- 8 y X 7-10 y. The spore Avail is slightly thickened and the con¬ 
tents are granular with one or more large oil drops (pi. 21, fig. 75). In 
a mass the spores are concolorous with the hymenium, but when 
viewed singly under the microscope they appear pale lemon yellow. 
Cultivation of basidiospores .— Germination was not so easily ob¬ 
tained in this species as in many others, not more than 1-1.5 % of 
the basidiospores producing germ tubes in any culture medium used. 
Usually but one germ tube is produced (pi. 21, fig. 76-77) and this 
makes its appearance only after about forty-eight hours. Subsequent 
growth, however, is fairly vigorous; the germ tube grows into a copious, 
much branched primary mycelium of clampless hyphae which average 
3-3.5 y in diameter, but may range as low as 1.5 y and as high as 4.5 
y, all sizes being intermingled in confusion. The primary mycelium 
persists only five or six days and is then gradually replaced by the sec¬ 
ondary mycelium; the latter arises by the direct continuation of the 
