ROSACEAE. Pyrus malus: Hawke's Bay, Hastings, 10 m. Canterbury, Papanui, 15 m. SALICACEAE. Populus nigra var. italica: Wellington, Lake Papaitonga, 20 m. Otago, Outram, 70 m. Salix babylonica: Canterbury, Twizel River, 650 m. Otago, Earnscleugh Research Orchard, 200 m.

Hymenophore pileate, sessile, gelatinous when fresh, horny when dry, solitary or crowded, rarely confluent. Pilei cupulate, disciform, or umbonate-affixed when attached by a narrow vertex, 1-10 mm radius, 1-15 mm wide, when confluent extending laterally to 3 cm; pileus surface white, greyish when old, densely tomentose; hymenial surface reddish-brown, or purple, at first even, in large specimens somewhat rugulose when dry. Context 0.3-0.5 mm thick, brown and glistening in section, basal layer of radiately arranged mainly parallel hyphae embedded in a gelatinous matrix; generative hyphae 5-7 µm diameter, walls 1.5-2.5 µm thick, somewhat gelatinous, with clamp connections; cortex tinted, of more firmly compacted hyphae, abhymenial hairs freely convoluted, 3-4 µm diameter. Hymenial layer to 70 µm deep, a dense palisade of basidia and paraphyses. Basidia subclavate; 16-24 x 4-5 µm, bearing 4 spores; sterigmata erect, slender, to 3 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 12-18 x 3.5-4 µm. Spores narrowly suballantoid, apiculate, 9-10 x 2.5-3 µm walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick; sometimes adhering in fours.

DISTRIBUTION: Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Solitary or gregarious on bark of dead branches.

A. ampla may be recognised by the white, tomentose fructifications frequently pendent by a narrow vertex, with dark plum or purple hymenial surface, subgelatinous context, and narrow suballantoid, nonamyloid spores. In macrofeatures fructifications resemble scattered pilei of Stereum purpureum, from which the species is readily separated by the absence of the zone of vesicles which characterises the former. Formerly I recorded (1956, p. 232) the species under the name of Cytidia flocculenta, and Cleland (1935, p. 262) also recorded its presence in South Australia under this name. Donk (1959, p. 78) has shown the species to be Auriculariopsis ampla, although inadvertently he had recorded it both as Cytidia salicina (p. 74) and A. ampla (p. 78).

TYPE LOCALITY: Europe.