The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise Part 85

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 355.--Daedalea ambigua. One-third natural size, showing upper surface.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 356.--Daedalea ambigua. One-third natural size, showing the pore surface.]

The pileus is white, corky, horizontal, explanate, reniform, subsessile, azonate, finely p.u.b.escent, becoming smooth.

Pores from round to linear and labyrinthiform, the dissepiments always obtuse and never lamellate.

It is a very common growth in Ohio, found on old logs of the sugar maple. You will see the beginning of the growth in the spring as a round white nodule which develops slowly. If the same plant is observed in the summer it will be found to be gibbous or convex in form. It finishes its growth in the fall when it has become explanate and horizontal, depressed above and with a thin margin. When fresh and growing it is of a rich cream-color and has a soft and velvety touch and a pleasant fragrance. In Figure 355, showing the surface of the cap, the growth of the plant shows in the form of the zones. Figure 356 shows the form of the dissepiments. In younger specimens these are frequently round, much like a Polyporus. There is one locality in Poke Hollow where the maple logs are white with this species, appearing, in the distance, to be oyster mushrooms.

_Daedalea quercina. Pk._

THE OAK DaeDALEA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 357.--Daedalea quercina.]

The pileus is a pallid wood color, corky, rugulose, uneven, without zones, becoming smooth; of the same color within as without; the margin in full-grown specimens thin, but in imperfectly developed specimens swollen and blunt.

The pores are at first round, then broken into contorted or gill-like labyrinthiform sinuses, with obtuse edges of the same color as the pileus, sometimes with a slight shade of pink.

They grow to be very large, from six to eight inches broad, being found on oak stumps and logs, though not as common in Ohio as D. ambigua. The specimen in Figure 357 were found in Ma.s.sachusetts by Mrs. Blackford and photographed here.

_Daedalea unicolor. Fr._

Villose-strigose, cinereous with concolorous zones; hymenium with flexuous, winding, intricate, acute dissepiments, at length torn and toothed. The pores are whitish cinereous, sometimes fuscous; variable in thickness, color, and character of hymenium; sometimes with white margin; often imbricated and fuliginous when moist. Widely distributed over the states and found on nearly all deciduous trees.

_Daedalea confragosa. Boton._

THE WILLOW DaeDALEA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 358.--Daedalea confragosa.]

Confragosa means broken, rough. The pileus is rather convex, corky, rough, slightly zonate, reddish-brown, unicolorous, somewhat of a rust-red within.

The pores are frequently round, like those of the Polyporus, but sometimes they are elongated into gills like the Lenzites; reddish-brown.

I have seen quite old specimens that were very difficult to distinguish from some of the forms of Lenzites. The young plants resemble very closely Trametes rubescens. It grows on Crataegus, willow and sometimes on other trees, and is widely distributed. The specimen in Figure 358 was found in Ma.s.sachusetts by Mrs. Blackford, and photographed in my study.

_Favolus. Fr._

Favolus is a diminutive of _favus_, honey-comb.

The hymenium is alveolate, radiating, formed of the densely irregularly uniting gills; elongated, diamond-shaped. Spores white. Semicircular in outline, somewhat stipitate.

_Favolus canadensis. Klotsch._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 359.--Favolus Canadensis.]

The pileus is fleshy, tough, thin, kidney-form, fibrillose, scaly, tawny, becoming pale and smooth.

The pores or alveoli are angular elongated, white at first, then straw-color.

The stem is eccentric, lateral, very short or lacking altogether.

This plant is very common around Chillicothe on fallen branches in the woods, especially on hickory. Found from September to frost. Not poisonous but too tough to eat. I do not believe there is any difference between F. canadensis and Favolus Europeus. I notice that our plant a.s.sumes different colors in different stages of its growth, and the form of the pores also changes.

_Cyclomyces. Kunz & Fr._

Cyclomyces is from two Greek words, meaning a circle and fungus. This genus is very distinct from other tube-bearing genera. The pileus is fleshy, leathery or membranaceous, and usually cus.h.i.+on-formed. Upon the lower surface are the plate-like bodies resembling the gills of Agarics but which are composed of minute pores. These pore bodies are arranged in concentric circles around the stem.

_Cyclomyces Greenii. Berk._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 360.--Cyclomyces Greenii]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 361.--Cyclomyces Greenii. Old specimens.]

The pileus is two to three inches broad, globose at first, convex, sometimes undulate, somewhat zoned, tomentose, dry, cus.h.i.+on-formed, cinnamon-brown, rather showy.

The gills are in concentric circles around the stem, growing larger and larger as they reach the margin of the cap. In the young plant the gills are divided into long divisions but in the older plant these division lines disappear as will be seen in Figure 361. The edges of the gills are white at first, as will be seen in Figure 361, but finally becoming cinnamon-brown.

The stem is central, tapering upward, quite large and swollen at times very much like Hydnum spongiosipes; the color is the same as the pileus.

This is a very interesting plant and quite rare in Ohio, however, I found several plants in the fall of 1905, on Ralston's Run. In the same locality I found Boletus badius, and when I first saw C. Greenii I came near mistaking it for the same plant and so neglecting it, the caps being at first glance so much alike.

_Gloeoporus. Mont._

Gloeoporus is from two Greek words, meaning gluten and pore. The plants of this genus resemble the polyporus and are frequently placed under that genus.

_Gloeoporus conchoides. Mont._

Conchoides means like a sh.e.l.l.

The pileus is leathery or woody, at first fleshy, soft, effused, with upper margin reflexed; thin, silky, whitish, with edge of the margin often reddish. It has a trembling, gelatinous, spore-bearing surface, often somewhat elastic.

The pores are short, very small, round, cinnamon-brown.

There are several synonyms. Polyporus dichrous, Fr., and P.

nigropurpurascens, Schw. Montgomery places it in the above genus because of its gelatinous hymenium.