Lloyd Mycological Writings V4.pdf - MykoWeb

FUSCUS. CONTEXT BROWN.
centric, raised ridges. Context thin, dark brown. Pores minute,
with concolorous tissue and darker mouths. Setae very few, slender.
Spores globose, 4-5 mic., very pale color.
This is known, I believe, only from the type at Kew from Nicaragua.
The determinations at New York are in error, also Baker's distribution
No. 2259, so determined by Burt, which is Fomes rimosus,
with no remote resemblance to Fomes linteus. I am not even sure
that linteus is a Fomes. It seems harder, but it is very close to Southern
forms of Polyporus gilvus, and the type has no layers of pores.
The "lime-white hairs" that clothe the pileus, according to Mr. Murrill's
account, are quite noticeable by their absence.
FOMES CALCITRATUS. Pileus applanate, with thin edge,
with a hard, brown, smooth, sulcate crust. Context dark brown
(cinnamon). Pores very minute, concolorous, with hard pore mouths.
Setae rare. Spores (W.) colored, 5-6 mic.
This, I think, is known only from the type (Wright 816) from
Cuba at Kew. At Paris and New York (also at Kew) Wright 264
(which is Fomes pseudosenex) , is labeled as being Fomes calcitratus,
and the account in N. A. F. was based on this mislabel.
XOTE. Polyporus Caryophylleus from Brazil has been classed as a Fomes and would tall in
this section. It has rare, colored setae and colored spores. I think it is better classed as a lignescent
Polyporus. It must not be confused with Fomes Caryophylli from Java.
7TH GENERAL DIVISION GANODERMUS.
The section Ganodermus of Fomes rests on the spore character. The colored
spore has a hyaline membrane, which is large and projecting at the base
beyond the colored endospore. This empty base usually collapses, then the spore
becomes truncate at the base. In addition, the cortex is brown and the pores are
always devoid of setae. This section in the broad sense, as used by Patouillard, is
quite natural as far as spores and context are concerned. The name (as a genus) is
coming into use in Europe in this sense, chiefly due to having been adopted by
Bresadola, and is the only one of Patouillard 's polyporoid genera that Bresadola
recognizes. After struggling against it for twenty volumes, Saccardo finally succumbed
in the twenty-first volume. In his previous volumes he had taken Gano-
dermus as a synonym for Fomes, which it is not, although a few Fomes are Gano-
dermus, and these alone are considered here under this head. The species of Fomes
in this section are very puzzling. There is little microscopic difference. The spores
are all very much the same, a little variation in size, but no more than is often
observed in different spores of the same specimen. Two of the rare have
species
distinctly rough spores, but this helps but little, for the bulk of specimens have
smooth or punctate spores. The context color is quite similar. The main difference
is in the crust, which is quite marked in extreme forms, but runs together in such
gradations that it is difficult to use as a character. In old times it was customary
to call everything that grew in temperate regions in this section Fomes applanatus,
and in the tropics, Fomes australis. It was a practical idea at any rate, even if
most of the specimens could not be distinguished without the locality being known.
In modern days the tendency is just the other way, and tropical species are based
on indistinguishable characters that we are unable to follow.
Large numbers of tropical collections have been secured for our museum, and
we have carefully worked them over and sorted them according to the most obvious
macroscopic characters. The most prominent distinction is a marked difference in
the relative weight.
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