ARALIACEAE. Pseudopanax crassifolium: Auckland, Glen Esk Valley, Piha, 200 m. COMPOSITAE. Olearia furfuracea: Auckland, Rangitoto Island. Senecio reinoldii: Otago, Ulva Islet, Stewart Island. ELAEOCARPACEAE. Elaeocarpus dentatus: Auckland, Huia, 35 m. MELIACEAE. Dysoxylum spectabile: Auckland, Kauri Park, Birkdale, 130m; Waitakere Ranges, 280m. MYRTACEAE. Metrosideros umbellata: Auckland, Te Araroa, 200 m. PASSIFLORACEAE. Tetrapathaea tetrandra: Auckland, Huia, 35 m. VERBENACEAE. Vitex lucens: Auckland, Huia, 100 m; Whekatahi Stream, Piha, 35 m.

Hymenophore annual, sometimes biennial, cretaceous, adherent, forming small elliptical or orbicular colonies 5-10 mm long, or linear areas 0.5-5 x 0.5-1.5 cm; hymenial surface white or pallid cream, velutinate, not creviced; margin abrupt, white, ceraceous, adherent. Context white, 50-300 µm thick, basal layer scanty, of parallel hyphae embedding masses of crystals, intermediate layer wanting; generative hyphae 2-2.5µm diameter, walls 0.2 µm thick, naked, with clamp connections. Cystidia arising from the base of the context, projecting for the greater part of their length, thick-walled, naked, or enmeshed in delicate hyphal sheaths, subulate, 80-135 x 10-16 µm, apices acuminate, bases inflated, forked. Hymenial layer to 20 µm deep, a scanty interrupted palisade of basidia, paraphyses, paraphysate hyphae, and cystidia. Basidia subclavate, 25-35 x 6-7 µm, bearing 1-2-4 spores; sterigmata stout, arcuate, often spread laterally, to 10 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, scanty, 15-20 x 4-5 µm. Paraphysate hyphae cylindrical or branched, 2-2.5 µm diameter, projecting to 15 µm. Spores flexuous-naviculate, bases rounded and apiculate, apices long-acuminate and geniculated, 18-26 x 5.5-6 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: Western Europe, North America, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Maculiform on bark of dead or living stems.

Both T. vermifera and T. vermicularis possess subulate cystidia projecting for the greater part of their length, unusual spores, and are without an intermediate layer. Cystidia are thick-walled, readily etched with solutions of potassium hydroxide, and possess strongly radicate bases. At maturity they are enmeshed in sheaths of delicate, freely branched hyphae, branches of which may grow above their apices. Those of T. vermifera are otherwise naked; but in T. vermicularis many cystidia are at first encrusted with crystals which later are shed and replaced with hyphal sheaths. T. vermifera may be identified readily by the small, somewhat maculiform fructifications, large subulate cystidia, large irregular basidia, and peculiar spores. Basidia may bear one, two, or four spores, many of the sterigmata developing almost laterally. Spores are flexuous-naviculate, with proximal ends bluntly acuminate and apiculate, the distal tapering and flexuous. New Zealand collections differ from those of European specimens in the more irregular basidia and, especially, copious development of masses of crystals in the context. In some of the collections listed the context is stratose, composed of two or three vague layers.

TYPE LOCALITY: Aveyron, France.