ARALIACEAE. Neopanax arboreum: Auckland, Anawhata Road, Waitakere Ranges, 300 m.

Hymenophore annual, membranous, fragile, at first adherent, when old somewhat loosely attached, effused forming irregular areas to 15 x 7 cm, with a few outlying islands; hymenial surface mustardyellow, pruinose, often finely papillate, at length scantily creviced; margin thinning out, fibrillose, concolorous, adherent. Context yellow, 150-250 µm thick, basal layer well developed, of intertwined mainly erect hyphae, more freely branched in the subhymenium; generative hyphae to 5 µm diameter, walls 0-2 µm thick, hyaline, branched at a wide angle, without clamp connections, some naked, most encrusted with coarse hyaline crystals or yellow mucilage granules; the latter coating most of the hyphae of the subhymenium, forming a deeply coloured zone. Metuloids arising in the subhymenium, some projecting to 50 µm, cylindrical with rounded apices, a few slightly irregular, 1-3 transversely septate, 40-75 x 5-7 µm, walls bearing a few mucilage granules or crystals below apices, some naked. Hymenial layer to 35 µm deep, a close palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and metuloids. Basidia subclavate or cylindrical; 16-22 x 4.5-5 µm; bearing 1-2-4 spores; sterigmata slightly arcuate, to 6 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 12-16 x 4-4.5 µm. Spores elliptical or suballantoid, apiculate, 4-5-6 x 2.5-3 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.1 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: North America, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Effused on bark or decorticated dead wood.

Hyphae of the subhymenium and upper part of the intermediate layer are densely encrusted with yellow mucilage granules like those of P. filamentosa. Metuloids are commonly cylindrical with rounded apices, occasionally strangulated, or geniculated, one to three transversely septate with thin hyaline walls bearing scattered granules or crystals near the hymenial surface, or naked. Our collection agrees with North American specimens save that spores are slightly smaller.

TYPE LOCALITY: North Carolina, U.S.A.