ARALIACEAE. Neopanax colensoi: Wellington, Mt. Tongariro, 1,000 m; Whakapapaiti Stream, Mt. Ruapehu, 1,000 m. Neopanax simplex: Otago, Ryans Creek, Stewart Island. MYRTACEAE. Eucalyptus sp.: Auckland, Mt. Eden, 120 m. Leptospermum scoparium: Auckland, Rangitoto Island. PITTOSPORACEAE. Pittosporum tenuifolium: Auckland, Glen Esk Valley, Piha, 250 m. ROSACEAE. Prunus cerasus: Wellington, Pangarara River, Mt. Tongariro, 1,100 m. South Australia, Beaumont, Adelaide.

Hymenophore annual, sometimes perennial, ceraceous, adherent, at first developing as numerous irregular colonies, becoming coalesced forming linear areas to 15 x 3 cm; hymenial surface some shade of grey (battleship-grey, mouse-grey), becoming darker with age, at first tuberculate or even, finally deeply creviced and tending to lift at margins of crevices; margin thinning out, concolorous, finely byssoid, adherent. Context ferruginous, 80-120 µm thick, sometimes zoned, basal layer scanty, of parallel coloured hyphae, intermediate layer of densely compacted erect hyphae with walls coloured brown and cemented; generative hyphae 3-5 µm diameter, walls 1-1.5 µm thick, pallid brown, naked, with clamp connections. Gloeocystidia pyriform or obovate when arising from the base of the intermediate layer, cylindrical or fusiform when arising in the base of and extending into the hymenial layer, 24-48 x 12-20 µm, walls to 2 µm thick. Metuloids abundant or scanty, usually conical with long pedicels, arising from the base of the intermediate layer, or sometimes developing in the subhymenium when fusiform with projecting sometimes strangulated apices, to 40 x 12 µm, finely encrusted. Hymenial layer to 35 µm, deep, a dense palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and metuloids. Basidia subclavate, 22-30 x 5-6 µm, bearing 4 spores; sterigmata slightly arcuate, to 6 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 16-22 x 4-5 µm. Spores suballantoid, apiculate, 7-9 x 3-3.5 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick.

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

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

Peniophora nuda, P. lycii, P. cinerea, and the extralimital P. violaceo-livida form a small group of related species. In all the context is waxy and composed of brown hyphae firmly cemented by their walls, spores are suballantoid or allantoid, and the hymenial surface is coloured some shade of grey. Probably species are perennial, although specimens with one or two zones of context are most frequently collected. Thanks to the excellent work of Eriksson (1950) it is possible to identify all four readily. P. nuda is separated by the presence of pyriform or clavate gloeocystidia. According to Eriksson (1950, p. 43) the type is no longer in the herbarium of Fries at Uppsala.

TYPE LOCALITY: Sweden.