COMPOSITAE. Brachyglottis repanda: Auckland, Whitianga Road, Coromandel Peninsula, 500 m. Olearia macrodonta: Auckland, Mt. Te Aroha, 400 m. CONIFERAE. Dacrydium cupressinum: Auckland, Mairoa, Wairakei. Phyllocladus alpinus: Wellington, Mt. Tongariro, 900 m. CORIARIACEAE. Coriaria arborea: Auckland, Oratia, Waitakere Ranges, 250 m. Coriaria sarmentosa: Auckland, Wairakei, 400 m. Wellington, Turakina Valley, 70 m. CUNONIACEAE. Weinmannia racemosa: Auckland, Mamaku Forest, 600 m; Lake Waikaremoana, 700 m. Taranaki, Dawson Falls, Mt. Egmont, 850 m. ELAEOCARPACEAE. Aristotelia serrata: Auckland, Moumoukai Valley, Hunua Ranges, 300 m; Otau, Hunua Ranges, 120 m. Westland, Karangarua Valley, 120 m. Otago, Ryans Creek, Stewart Island. Elaeocarpus dentatus: Westland, Harihari, 80 m. FAGACEAE. Nothofagus cliffortioides: Wellington, Ohakune Track, Mt. Ruapehu, 700 m. Nothofagus fusca: Nelson, Staircase Creek, Reefton, 700 m. FILICALES. Blechnum filiforme: Wellington, Lake Papaitonga, 20 m. LAURACEAE. Beilschmiedia tawa: Auckland, Lake Okataina, 500 m. Wellington, Lake Papaitonga, 20 m; Totara Reserve, Pohangina Valley, 45 m. Cinnamomum camphora: New South Wales, Sydney. MONIMIACEAE. Hedycarya arborea: Auckland, Lake Rotoehu, 400 m. MYRSINACEAE. Myrsine salicina: Auckland, Little Barrier Island. MYRTACEAE. Leptospermum ericoides: Auckland, Bethells Road, Waitakere Ranges, 200 m; Kauaeranga Valley, Thames, 70 m. Leptospermum scoparium: Auckland, Moturoa Island, Bay of Islands, 10 m; Mt. Te Aroha, 400 m. Otago, Stewart Island. Metrosideros excelsa: Auckland, Rangitoto Island. Metrosideros perforata: Ulva Islet, Stewart Island. PITTOSPORACEAE. Pittosporum tenuifolium: Auckland, Waitetoki, Lake Taupo, 450 m. PROTEACEAE. Hakea saligna: Auckland, Campbells Bay. Knightia excelsa: Auckland, Kauri Park, Birkdale, 120 m. RUBIACEAE. Coprosma arborea: Auckland, Huia, 100 m. Coprosma robusta: Auckland, Rangitoto Island; Little Barrier Island; Paraheka Gorge, coast. SAPINDACEAE. Alectryon excelsus: Hawke's Bay, Waipatiki Beach. Wellington, Lake Papaitonga, 20 m. SAXIFRAGACEAE. Quintinia serrata: Westland, Pukekura. UNKNOWN HOSTS. South Australia, Adelaide; Blackwood Gully, Kuitpo; Encounter Bay; National Park; Mt. Lofty; Belair; Mt. Compass. New South Wales, Sydney; Killcare. Tasmania, Port Arthur.

Hymenophore perennial, ceraceous, adherent, at first appearing as numerous- small orbicular or elliptical scattered colonies which may remain discrete or coalesce to form linear areas to 20 x 1-3 cm; hymenial surface some shade of grey, often tinged violet, heliotrope, pinkish, or when old, bay or umber, even or when in small groups often tuberculate, finally deeply laterally creviced; margin either thinning out or abrupt with concolorous or darker border, byssoid, adherent. Context dark brown and glistening in section, 60-240 µm thick, of one or several zones each composed of a scanty basal layer of parallel cemented hyphae with walls coloured brown, and an. intermediate layer of erect compact hyphae and embedded metuloids; generative hyphae to 5 µm diameter, walls 1-1.5 µm thick, chestnut, naked, with clamp connections. Metuloids scattered through intermediate and hymenial layers, some projecting slightly, at first fusiform and naked, becoming conical with prominent coloured pedicels, 24-32 x 10-16 µm, walls coarsely encrusted, metuloids in the base oval or pyriform, 18-24 µm broad. Hymenial layer to 40 µm deep, a dense palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and metuloids. Basidia subclavate, 20-28 x 5-6 µm, bearing 4 spores; sterigmata slightly arcuate, to 4 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 16-22 x 4-5 µm. Spores suballantoid, some allantoid, 7-8.5 x 3-3.5 µm walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: Cosmopolitan.

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

Metuloids develop from the base of each intermediate layer, and pedicels, being of different lengths, carry them to different positions in the context. They tend to disappear from lower zones of the context, pedicels remaining in position and then resembling gloeocystidia, as do immature metuloids in the current layer. Collections vary appreciably in shape and size of metuloids, thickness and degree of stratification of the context, and in thickness of the basal layer. Normally thin and scanty, in occasional specimens the basal layer may be appreciably thickened, as in a collection from Blechnum filiforme, which agrees with typical forms in other features. According to Eriksson (1950, p. 33) collections labelled Thelephora cinerea in Persoon's herbarium are of the related P. lycii; and the type of P. cinerea is not now in the herbarium of Fries at Uppsala.

TYPE LOCALITY: Sweden.