FAGACEAE. Nothofagus fusca: Nelson, Murchison, 170 m.

Subiculum annual, membranous, forming small white irregular areas 0.5-3 cm across, 150-300 µm thick, of loosely intertwined hyphae freely branched, septate, walls hyaline, some crystal encrusted. Pilei crowded, sometimes confluent, cupulate, sessile within rudimentary loculi in the subiculum, margins alone showing, 150-300 µm tall, to 400 µm diameter; pileus exterior clothed with tomentum, white, discoloured where tomentum has been removed, hairs of similar type to those of the subiculum. Context dingy brown, at length fuscous, to 25 µm thick, of densely arranged parallel hyphae; generative hyphae 2-2.5 µm diameter, walls 0.2 µm thick, hyaline. Hymenial layer to 20 µm deep, a close palisade of basidia and paraphyses. Basidia clavate, 12-16 x 4.5-5 µm, bearing 4 spores; sterigmata erect, to 3 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate or clavate, 8-14 x 4-4.5 µm. Spores elliptical with rounded ends, some flattened on one side when obliquely apiculate, 4-5 x a-2.5 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.1 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: Europe, Great Britain, North and South America, New Zealand.

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

Although pilei of this collection are somewhat smaller, they agree with European specimens examined in Kew herbarium. For additional synonyms see Donk (1959, p. 81).

TYPE LOCALITY: Europe.