CUNONIACEAE. Weinmannia silvicola: Auckland, Little Barrier Island. MELIACEAE. Dysoxylum spectabile: Auckland, Little Barrier Island. MYRTACEAE. Eucalyptus regnans: Victoria, Sassafras, Dandenong Ranges. Metrosideros excelsa: Buffalo Beach, Whitianga. PROTEACEAE. Knightia excelsa: Auckland, Waikaretu, 120 m; Purewa Bush, 35 m. VERBENACEAE. Vitex lucens: Auckland, Purewa Bush, 35 m. WINTERACEAE. Pseudowintera colorata: Westland, The Forks, Okarito. UNKNOWN HOST. New South Wales, Robertson.

Hymenophore resupinate, perennial, stratose, membranous, adherent, at first appearing as numerous small orbicular or linear colonies 2-10 mm across with free, fulvous, fibrillose margins, merging to form irregular areas to 10 x 5 cm; hymenial surface at first reddish-brown, becoming ferruginous or pallid umber, commonly coarsely and densely tuberculate, sometimes even when slightly velutinate, not creviced; margin fulvous, or concolorous, adherent, fibrillose. Context ferruginous, 0.25-4 mm thick, in annual plants composed of one or two rows of rather scanty setae arising near the hymenial surface, a broad layer of intertwined usually dendriform hyphae and a narrow, reddish-brown, compact cortex bearing dense, brief abhymenial hairs; when perennial stratose with 5-16 layers of setae with context hyphae between and parallel lines of darker colour; generative hyphae 2-2.5 µm diameter, walls 0.5-1 µm thick, golden brown, freely branched, with many short lateral branches, scantily septate. Setal layers 95-130 µm deep, of 5-16 zones with context tissue between; setae acicular, apices long-acuminate, some projecting to 70 µm, 70-130 x 8-12 µm, walls naked, reddish-brown, lumena narrow, expanded towards the bases. Hymenial layer a close palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and paraphysate hyphae. Basidia subclavate, 14-18 x 4.5-5 µm, bearing 2-4 spores; sterigmata slender, erect, to 5 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 6-12 x 4-4.5 µm. Paraphysate hyphae dendriform, projecting, brown. Spores suballantoid, apiculate, 4-5.5 x 3-3.5 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.1 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Bark or decorticated wood of dead branches and trunks associated with a pocket rot.

H. tasmanica may be identified by the usually coarsely tuberculate, ferruginous hymenial surface, fulvous margin of young plants, long and narrow, reddish-brown setae usually arranged in strata, thick-walled narrow hyphae which are freely branched, brown dendriform paraphysate hyphae, and suballantoid spores. The hymenial surface of Australian collections is less tuberculate than those from New Zealand, but in other particulars they are almost identical. Setae are slightly longer in smooth forms, but show an appreciable range in length in all specimens. Spores are scantily produced and found only in specimens actively growing at the time of collecting. Figure 157 was drawn from a young plant showing only two setal layers; in thick specimens as many as 16 layers may develop to occupy the greater part of the context.
Massee's description of the type is faulty in several particulars; for setae are much shorter than he had described them, and spores are shorter and suballantoid. The type specimen was collected in Tasmania, as the type sheet shows, not New Zealand as he had recorded. H. vaginata differs in that setae are of different shape, larger, and usually enmeshed in hyphal sheaths; hyphae are not dendriform, paraphysate hyphae are simple, spores longer and of different shape. Both H. tasmanica and H. vaginata show a general resemblance to H. cinnamomea, since all three are stratose and composed of branched generative hyphae. They differ in possessing a deeply coloured cortex of intertwined and cemented hyphae.

TYPE LOCALITY: Tasmania.