Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. Part 21

The tubes are small, and the walls thin and delicate, and are sometimes much torn, lacerated, and irregular. When the mycelium has grown in the interior of a log for a number of years it tends to grow in sheets along the line of the medullary rays of the wood or across in concentric layers corresponding to the summer wood. Also as the wood becomes more decomposed, cracks and rifts appear along these same lines. The mycelium then grows in abundance in these rifts and forms broad and extensive sheets which resemble somewhat chamois skin and is called "punk."

Similar punk is sometimes formed in conifers from the mycelium of _Fomes pinicola_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 70, FIGURE 185.--Polyporus sulphureus. Caps joined in a ma.s.sive tubercle (1/2 natural size).]

_Polyporus sulphureus_ has long been known as an edible fungus, but from its rather firm and fibrous texture it requires a different preparation from the fleshy fungi to prepare it for the table, and this may be one reason why it is not employed more frequently as an article of food. It is common enough during the summer and especially during the autumn to provide this kind of food in considerable quant.i.ties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 71, FIGURE 186.--Polyporus brumalis. Cap and stem brown, tubes white. Lower three plants natural size, upper one enlarged twice natural size. Copyright.]

=Polyporus brumalis= (Pers.) Fr.--This pretty plant is found at all seasons of the year, and from its frequency during the winter was named _brumalis_, from _bruma_, which means winter. It grows on sticks and branches, or on trunks. It usually occurs singly, sometimes two or three close together. The plants are 3--6 cm. high, the cap 2--6 cm. in diameter, and the stem is 3--6 mm. in thickness.

The =cap= is convex, then plane, and sometimes depressed at the center or umbilicate. When young it is somewhat fleshy and pliant, then it becomes tough, coriaceous, and hard when dry. During wet weather it becomes pliant again. Being hard and firm, and tough, it preserves long after mature, so that it may be found at any season of the year. The cap is smoky in color, varying in shade, sometimes very dark, almost black, and other specimens being quite light in color. The surface is hairy and the margin is often fimbriate with coa.r.s.e hairs. The =stem= is lighter, hairy or strigose. The =tubes= are first white, then become yellowish.

The tubes are very regular in arrangement.

Figure 186 represents well this species, three plants being grouped rather closely on the same stick; two show the under surface and one gives a side view. The upper portion of the plate represents two of the plants enlarged, the three lower ones being natural size. The plant is very common and widely distributed over the world. Those ill.u.s.trated in the plate were collected at Ithaca. This species is too tough for food.

Many of the thin and pliant species of _Polyporus_ are separated by some into the genus =Polystictus=. The species are very numerous, as well as some of the individuals of certain species. They grow on wood or on the ground, some have a central stem, and others are shelving, while some are spread out on the surface of the wood. One very pretty species is the =Polystictus perennis= Fr. This grows on the ground and has a central stem. The plant is 2--3 cm. high, and the cap 1--4 cm. broad.

The =pileus= is thin, pliant when fresh and somewhat brittle when dry.

It is minutely velvety on the upper surface, reddish brown or cinnamon in color, expanded or umbilicate to nearly funnel-shaped. The surface is marked beautifully by radiations and fine concentric zones. The =stem= is also velvety. The =tubes= are minute, the walls thin and acute, and the mouths angular and at last more or less torn. The margin of the cap is finely fimbriate, but in old specimens these hairs are apt to become rubbed off. The left hand plant in Fig. 187 is _Polyporus perennis_.

=Polystictus cinnamomeus= (Jacq.) Sacc., (_P. oblectans_ Berk. Hook.

Jour. p. 51, 1845, Dec. N. A. F. No. 35: _P. splendens_ Pk., 26th Report N. Y. State Mus., p. 26) is a closely related species with the same habit, color, and often is found growing side by side with _P.

perennis_. The margin of the cap is deeply and beautifully lacerate, as shown in the three other plants in Fig. 187. _Polystictus connatus_ Schw., grows in similar situations and one sometimes finds all three of these plants near each other on the ground by roadsides. _P. connatus_ has much larger pores than either of the other two, and it is a somewhat larger plant. Figure 187 is from a photograph of plants collected at Blowing Rock, N. C., during September, 1899.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 187.--Left-hand plant Polystictus perennis; right-hand three plants Polystictus cinnamomeus. All natural size.

Copyright.]

=Polystictus versicolor= (L.) Fr., is a very common plant growing on trunks and branches. It is more or less shelving, with a leaf-like pileus, marked by concentric bands of different colors. =P. hirsutus= Fr., is a somewhat thicker and more spongy plant, whitish or grayish in color, with the upper surface tomentose with coa.r.s.e hairs. =P.

cinnabarinus= (Jacq.) Fr., is shelving, spongy, pliant, rather thick, cinnabar colored. It grows on dead logs and branches. It is sometimes placed in the genus _Trametes_ under the same specific name.

=Polystictus pergamenus= Fr., is another common one growing on wood of various trees. It is thin and very pliant when fresh, somewhat tomentose above when young, with faint bands, and the tubes are often violet or purple color, and they soon become deeply torn and lacerate so that they resemble the teeth of certain of the hedgehog fungi.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 72, FIGURE 188.--Polyporus lucidus. Caps bright red or chestnut color, with a hard shiny crust (1/6 natural size).

Copyright.]

=Polyporus lucidus= (Leys.) Fr. [_Fomes lucidus_ (Leys.) Fr.]--This species is a very striking one because of the bright red or chestnut color, the hard and brittle crust over the surface of the cap, which has usually the appearance of having been varnished. It grows on trunks, logs, stumps, etc., in woods or groves. The cap is 5--20 cm. in diameter, and the stem is 5--20 cm. long, and 1--2 cm. in thickness. The stem is attached to one side of the pileus so that the pileus is lateral, though the stem is more or less ascending.

The =cap= is first yellowish when young, then it becomes blood red, then chestnut color. The =stem= is the same color, and the =tubes= are not so bright in color, being a dull brown. The substance of the plant is quite woody and tough when mature. When dry it is soon attacked and eaten by certain insects, which are fond of a number of fungi, so that they are difficult to preserve in good condition in herbaria without great care.

The surface of the pileus is quite uneven, wrinkled, and coa.r.s.ely grooved, the margin sometimes crenate, especially in large specimens.

Figure 188 represents the plant growing on a large hemlock spruce stump in the woods. The surface character of the caps and the general form can be seen. This photograph was taken near Ithaca, N. Y.

=Polyporus applanatus= (Pers.) Fr. [_Fomes applanatus_ (Pers.) Wallr.]--This plant is also one of the very common woody _Polyporaceae_.

It grows on dead trunks, etc., and sometimes is found growing from the wounds of living trees. It is very hard and woody. It has a hard crust, much harder than that of the _Polyporus lucidus_. The surface is more or less marked by concentric zones which mark off the different years'

growth, for this plant is perennial. At certain seasons of the year the upper surface is covered with a powdery substance of a reddish brown color, made up of numerous colored spores or conidia which are developed on the upper surface of this plant in addition to the smaller spores developed in the tubes on the under surface.

The plant varies in size from 5--20 cm. or more in diameter, and 1--10 cm. in thickness, according to the rapidity of growth and the age of the fungus. The fruiting surface is white, and the tubes are very minute.

They scarcely can be seen with the unaided eye. Bruises of the tubes turn brown, and certain "artists" often collect these plants and sketch with a pointed instrument on the tube surface. For other peculiarities of this plant see page 15. The age of the plant can usually be told by counting the number of the broader zones on the upper surface, or by making a section through the plant and counting the number of tube strata on the lower surface of the cap at its base.

=Polyporus leucophaeus= Mont., is said to differ from this species in being more strongly zonate, and in the crust being whitish instead of reddish brown.

=Polyporus fomentarius= (L.) Fr. [_Fomes fomentarius_ (L.) Fr.,] is hoof-shaped, smoky in color, or gray, and of various shades of dull brown. It is strongly zoned and sulcate, marking off each year's growth.

The margin is thick and blunt, and the tube surface concave, the tubes having quite large mouths so that they can be readily seen, the color when mature being reddish brown. Sections of the plant show that the tubes are very long, the different years' growth not being marked off so distinctly as in _P. applanatus_ and _leucophaeus_. The plant grows on birch, beech, maple, etc. The inner portion was once used as tinder.

=Polyporus pinicola= (Swartz.) Fr. [_Fomes pinicola_ (Swartz.) Fr.]

occurs on dead pine, spruce, balsam, hemlock spruce, and other conifers.

The cap is about the width of the _F. applanatus_, but it is stouter, and does not have the same hard crust. The young growth at the margin, which is very thick, is whitish yellow, while the old zones are reddish.

The tubes are yellowish, and sections show that they are in strata corresponding to the years' growth. =Polyporus igniarius= (L.) Fr.

[_Fomes igniarius_ (L.) Fr.] is a black species, more or less triangular, or sometimes hoof-shaped. The yearly zones are smaller, become much cracked, and the tubes are dark brown. One of these plants which I found on a birch tree in the Adirondacks was over 80 years old.

The genus _Merulius_ has a fruiting surface of irregular folds or wrinkles, forming shallow, irregular pits instead of a deeply honey-combed surface. =Merulius lacrymans= (Jacq.) Fr., the "weeping"

merulius, or "house fungus," often occurs in damp cellars, buildings, conduit pipes, etc. It is very destructive to buildings in certain parts of Europe (see Figs. 189, 190). =Merulius tremellosus= Schrad., is very common in woods during autumn. It is of a gelatinous consistency, and spread on the under surface of limbs or forms irregular shelves from the side (see Figs. 191, 192).

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 73.--Merulius lacrymans. FIGURE 189.--Upper plant in conduit pipe leading from wash room, Gymnasium C. U., Autumn, 1899.

FIGURE 190.--Lower plant from under surface decaying hemlock spruce log in woods near Freeville, N. Y., October, 1899. Margin of plants white, fruiting surface a network of irregular folds, golden brown, or brown.

Copyright.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 74.--Merulius tremellosus. FIGURE 191.--Natural size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 192.--Enlarged to show character of fruiting surface. Fruiting surface yellowish; margin and upper surface in shelving forms, white, hairy. Copyright.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 75, FIGURE 193.--Phlebia merismoides. On rotting log, woods near Ithaca, November 23, 1898 (No. 2634 C. U. herbarium).

Various shades of orange, yellow or yellow brown when old. Copyright.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 76, FIGURE 194.--Phlebia merismoides. Portion of a plant 2-1/2 times natural size, to show interrupted folds of fruiting surface. For colors see Fig. 193. Copyright.]

CHAPTER X.

HEDGEHOG FUNGI: HYDNACEAE.

The plants belonging to this family vary greatly in size, form, and consistency. Some of them are very large, some quite small, some are fleshy in consistency, some are woody, corky; some membranaceous; and if we include plants formerly cla.s.sed here, some are gelatinous, though there is a tendency in recent years on the part of some to place the gelatinous ones among the trembling fungi. The special character which marks the members of this family is the peculiarity of the fruiting surface, just as a number of the other families are distinguished by some peculiarity of the fruiting surface. In the _Hydnaceae_ it covers the surface of numerous processes in the form of spines, teeth, warts, coa.r.s.e granules, or folds which are interrupted at short intervals.

These spines or teeth always are directed toward the earth when the plant is in the position in which it grew. In this way the members of the family can be distinguished from certain members of the club fungi belonging to the family _Clavariaceae_, for in the latter the branches or free parts of the plant are erect.

In form the _Hydnaceae_ are shelving, growing on trees; or growing on the ground they often have a central or eccentric stem, and a more or less circular cap; some of them are rounded ma.s.ses, growing from trees, with very long spines extending downward; others have ascending branches from which the spines depend; and still others form thin sheets which are spread over the surface of logs and sticks, the spines hanging down from the surface, or roughened with granules or warts, or interrupted folds (see _Phlebia_, Figs. 193, 194). In one genus there is no fruit body, but the spines themselves extend downward from the rotten wood, the genus _Mucronella_. This is only distinguished, so far as its family position is concerned, from such a species as _Clavaria mucida_ by the fact that the plant grows downward from the wood, while in _C. mucida_ it grows erect.

HYDNUM Linn.

The only species of the _Hydnaceae_ described here are in the genus _Hydnum_. In this genus the fruiting surface is on spine, or awl-shaped processes, which are either simple or in some cases the tips are more or less branched. The plants grow on the ground or on wood. The species vary greatly in form. Some are provided with a more or less regular cap and a stem, while others are shelving or bracket shaped, and still others are spread out over the surface of the wood (resupinate).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 195.--Hydnum coralloides. Entirely white (natural size). Copyright.]

=Hydnum coralloides= Scop. =Edible.=--Among the very beautiful species of the genus _Hydnum_ is the coral one, _Hydnum coralloides_. It grows in woods forming large, beautiful, pure white tufts on rotten logs, branches, etc. The appearance of one of these tufts is shown in Fig.

195. There is a common stem which arises from the wood, and this branches successively into long, ascending, graceful shoots. The spines are scattered over the entire under side of these branches and hang down for 3--6 mm. They are not cl.u.s.tered at the ends of the branches, as in the bear's head hydnum, and the species can be easily distinguished by giving attention to the form of the branching and the distribution of the spines on the under side of the branches. Figure 195 represents a plant collected at Ithaca, and it is natural size. They grow, however, much larger than this specimen. The species is widely distributed, and not uncommon. It is excellent for food.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 77, FIGURE 196.--Hydnum caput-ursi. Entirely white (natural size). Copyright.]