Spore print white. Small fruiting bodies, often in large groups, attached laterally to wood or twigs. Flesh leathery and gills often fold-like and poorly defined.

There are 3 species reported for New Zealand, all indigenous, one also known from Australia.

Saprobic, found on dead twigs and small branches.

Some Marasmiellus species have the same combination of small, leathery fruiting bodies with lateral attachement. The genera are distinguished microscopically.

Small, thin-fleshed but tough and leathery, saprobic basidiomycetes with helf-like fruiting bodies form on dead wood. Globose to subglobose spores. The hymenial surface is folded rather than gill-like. Cheimonophyllum and Mniopetalum are morphologically similar. Anthracophyllum is characterised by its reddish pigments that dissolve in KOH. Mniopetalum grows on mosses.

Anthracophyllum is a unique genus among the Agaricales on account of its unusual pigments. Many species have brownish to red pigments that are extracted by alcohol and also diffuse into the medium in preparations with KOH. Even more distinctive are the carbonaceous granules that become blue-green in KOH, diffusing into and staining the adjacent tissues green. Several species have been described, but diverse opinions exist about the validity of some of these (Lloyd 1923; Singer 1986). It seems that the basidiomes of all are very t similar in appearance and species discrimination is based largely on microscopic characters.

The majority of species now assigned to Anthracophyllum were first described in the genus Xerotus Fr. Massee (1898) described two species of Xerotus for New Zealand, X. drummondii Berk. and X. glaucophyllus Cooke & Massee. Horak (1971), however, could not locate New Zealand collections of either species at Kew. The type collection of X. drummondii (Swan R., W. Australia, K) had been shown by Pegler (1965) to be a synonym of A. archeri (Berk.) Pegler. This fungus is reported to be common in Australia and a full description is supplied by Wood (1983). No collections of A. archeri have been reported from New Zealand since the "fine specimens from New Zealand in Berkeley's herbarium" of X. drummondii were seen by Massee (1898). A number of collections of it are held, however, in PDD, Auckland, indicating that it is fairly common in some years in indigenous forest. A full description of it from these recent collections is given below.

The type collection (Colenso 1193) of the New Zealand species, X. glaucophyllus, sent to Kew by Colenso, was described by Massee (1898) as having gills "few, distant, broad, pale brick-red. becoming glaucous, and spores about 6 µ''. Lloyd (1923) considered it to be a synonym of "X berterii" (A. berteroi (Mont.) Singer) from the Juan Fernandez Island, Chile. The collection was next studied by Pegler & Young (1989), who concluded that there were no soluble pigments, and recommended that it should be included in Marasmiellus. My examination of the type material showed that KOH soluble, brown and green pigments are certainly present, and spores that still have contents also have the characteristic ovo-ellipsoid shape of Anthracophyllum, whereas empty ones tend to shrink at the basal end, changing to the lacrymoid shape often seen in Marasmiellus. All characters support the identification of this fungus as a species of Anthracophyllum. No fresh collections of this fungus appear to have been made since Colenso's, so knowledge of field characters is slight, but all the evidence that is available indicates that it should be considered a distinct species. The recombination Anthracophyllum glaucophyllum (Cooke & Massee) comb. nov. is therefore proposed, and a detailed description is given below.

Horak ( 1971 ) suggested that Resupinatus purpureo-olivaceus G.Stev., also from New Zealand might be a species of Anthracophyllum, but Pegler & Young (1989) rightly referred it to Pleurotus. The identity of this fungus will be discussed in a forthcoming publication.

Recently, collections have been made in New Zealand of a further, distinctly different Anthracophyllum species, which is described below as A. pallidum sp. nov.