FAGACEAE. Nothofagus cliffortioides: Nelson, Lake Rotoiti, 700 m. Nothofagus menziesii: Hawke's Bay, Upper Mohaka Valley, 700 m; Poronui, Kaiwaka Ranges, 650 m. Nelson, Marble Hill, Maruia, 900 m. Otago, Otautau, 350 m.

Hymenophore annual, ceraceous, adherent, erumpent from beneath bark, effused forming linear areas to 30 x 10 cm; hymenial surface at first orange, then reddish-brown, Indian red or lateritius, even, becoming scantily creviced, gelatinous when moist; margin irregular, orange, floccose or sometimes scantily rhizomorphic. Context reddish-brown, 60-100 µm thick, basal layer of parallel hyphae scantily developed, intermediate layer of erect hyphae compacted with mucilage; generative hyphae 3-4 µm diameter, walls 0.2 µm thick, encrusted with orange mucilage granules, flexuous, with clamp connections. Hymenial layer 60-120 µm deep, a close palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and paraphysate hyphae encrusted with mucilage granules. Basidia clavate, 35-112 x 6-16 µm, bearing 2-4 spores; Sterigmata stout, to 10 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 30-60 x 4-6 µm. Paraphysate hyphae projecting, apically scantily or freely branched, naked, 3-4 µm diameter. Spores allantoid, 16-24 x 5-7 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: Europe, Great Britain, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Erumpent through bark of dead branches.

C. comedens develops beneath bark, soon becoming erumpent, the ruptured bark then curling away to expose the semigelatinous hymenophore. At first bright orange, especially near margins, the hymenial surface soon changes to the colour of deeply burned brick, finally becoming reddish brown. Although sections are reddish, context hyphae are hyaline, colour being supplied to sections by masses of orange mucilage granules encrusting hyphal walls, basidia, paraphyses, and filling interstices between. Paraphyses, although numerous, are often overlooked, since in sections they are almost hidden by the large basidia. Some develop deeply within the intermediate layer, when they may be mistaken for gloeocystidia: Maire stated that spores germinate by repetition; but that is not supported by one collection at hand in which spores were seen to produce hyphae in the usual manner. For this and other reasons he placed the species under Vuilleminia. Gaumann (1926, p. 489) placed the species under the Vuilleminiaceae, a family he erected to contain this one species, which he held to be a heterobasidiomycete. In a later work (1949, p. 263) he recognised the genus but returned it to the Corticiaceae.

TYPE LOCALITY: Europe.