Hymenophore resupinate, perennial, membranous-brittle, loosely attached, appearing as irregular orbicular or linear areas 1.5-4 cm across. Hymenial surface cinnamon, drying date-brown, irregularly tuberculate, velutinate, not creviced; margin thinning out, fulvous, often upturned or twisted inwards, coarsely lobed and delicately fibrillose, free. Context ferruginous, 0.5-1 mm thick, almost wholly composed of setal layers with intertwined hyphae between, zoned with more deeply coloured reddish-brown bands, near the base composed of mainly upright intertwined hyphae, cortex reddish-brown, cemented and interwoven, bearing a dense mat of long abhymenial hairs; hyphal system monomitic; generative hyphae 3-3.5 µ diameter, walls 0.5-1 µ thick, golden brown, branched, sometimes bifid at the apices, sparsely septate. Setal layers 5-9, each to 150 µ deep, with rather scattered overlapping setae and narrow bands of context hyphae between; setae projecting to 110 µ, narrowly fusiform with long acuminate apices, 90-160 x 9-14 µ, partly or wholly enmeshed in hyphal sheaths, walls reddish-brown, lumina narrow. Hymenial layer to 30 µ deep, a scanty palisade of basidia, paraphyses and paraphysate hyphae. Basidia cylindrical or subclavate, 16-20 x 4-5 µ, 4-spored; sterigmata arcuate, rather stout, to 4 µ long. Paraphyses cylindrical, shorter and slightly narrower than the basidia. Paraphysate hyphae abundant, filiform, seldom bifid at the apices, projecting slightly. Spores narrowly elliptical, 7-8 x 2.5 µ, apiculate, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.1 µ thick.

DISTRIBUTION: New Zealand.

HABITAT: Loosely attached to bark of dead branches and trunks; type of rot not seen.

Resupinata, perennis, membranacea, fragilis, laxe adjuncta. Superficies hymenii cinnamomea, deinde siccans spadicea, tuberculata, non rimosa; margine late lobato, fulvo, laxe adjuncto. Contextus ferrugineus, plurium stratorum setarum hyphis intertextis, strato medio hypharum intertextarum; cortex adest. Hypharum systema monomiticum. Stratum setarum sparsarum, anguste fusiformium, ad 110 µ eminentium, nudarum vel in hypharum vagina implicatarum, 90-160 x 9-14 µ. Basidia cylindricalia vel subclavata, 16-20 x 4-5 µ, 4 sporis anguste ellipticis, 7-8 x 2.5 µ.

In its stratose structure, monomitic hyphal system, and presence of a cortex the species resembles smooth forms of H. tasmanica. It differs in the filiform paraphysate hyphae, different spores, larger basidia, context hyphae of larger diameter, and without dendriform branches. Setae are much larger and most are enmeshed in hyphal sheaths like cystidia of Peniophora vermifera. When dry the hymenophore is brittle, and when fractured surfaces appear vertically fibrillose. Spores are rare, the few seen attached to basidia being of the dimensions described. Plants are loosely attached to bark, and when dry tend to curl from the margin either erect or inwards.

Phyllocladus alpinus Hook.f.Wellington: Whakapapa, Mt. Ruapehu, 3,000ft, October 1949, J.M.Dingley, type collection, P.D.D. herbarium, No. 7437.