On naked wood. Waitaki (278).

CONIFERAE. Dacrydium cupressinum: Wellington, Carters Reserve, Carterton, 50 m. Pinus radiata: Wellington, Waverley, 120 m. CORIARIACEAE. Coriaria arborea: Auckland, Waiomu Valley, Thames, 75 m. LILIACEAE. Cordyline australis: Auckland, Glen Esk Valley, Piha, 300 m. UNKNOWN HOSTS. Hawke's Bay, Turangakumu Saddle, 850 m. South Australia, National Park; Fullarton; Blackfellows Creek. New South Wales, Sydney.

Hymenophore annual, membranous, adherent, effused forming irregular areas 5-25 x 5-10 cm; hymenial surface white, then cream, finally alutaceous, granular-arachnoid, or even, finely velutinate, not creviced; margin thinning out, arachnoid, white, adherent. Context white, 200-300 µm thick, basal layer narrow, of parallel hyphae, intermediate layer of densely arranged erect branched hyphae; generative hyphae 4.5-6 µm diameter, walls 0.25 µm thick, hyaline, naked, with clamp connections. Metuloids arising from the intermediate layer, often from its base, projecting to 70 µm, cylindrical or slightly tapering, 60-192 x 6-10 µm, transversely septate, some septa with clamp connections, walls partly encrusted with coarse or fine crystals. Hymenial layer to 35 µm deep, a close palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and metuloids. Basidia cylindric-flexuous, some inflated at the base, 24-32 x 5-6 µm, bearing 4 spores; sterigmata erect, stout, to 6 x 2 µm. Paraphyses clavate, some with an apical bead or digitate process, 12-16 x 5-6 µm. Spores narrowly elliptical with rounded apices, apiculate, usually obliquely so, 7-10 x 3-5 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.1 µm thick.

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

HABITAT: Effused on bark or decorticated wood of dead branches and trunks.

P. aspera may be recognised by the large, transversely septate, encrusted metuloids, long elliptical spores and arrangement of context hyphae. Metuloids arise from the intermediate tissues, some projecting to 70 µm, whereas others do not extend beyond the surface of the hymenium. The hymenial surface may be even, velutinate, somewhat porose-reticulate, or granular. It was this last condition which led Miller to place the species under Odontia, with which genus it has several features in common; but as most collections examined are even, both from this region and in Kew herbarium, the species is best treated as a Peniophora, and the ancillary organs, although septate, regarded as metuloids. Basidia are frequently cylindrical, and flexuous, with slightly inflated bases. Although commonly known in Europe as Peniophora setigera, in North America as Corticium berkeleyi, Rogers & Jackson (1943, p. 282) held that the most tenable name for the species is P. aspera. They gave a long synonyme list, from which some of the more common synonyms have been taken. Neither spores nor metuloids of Australasian collections attain to the dimensions given by Bourdot & Galzin (1928, p. 309), namely spores 8-11-16 x 3-4-6 µm; metuloids 75-250 x 7-15 µm, but agree with several European collections examined in Kew herbarium.

TYPE LOCALITY: Europe.