CHLORANTHACEAE. Ascarina lucida: Westland, Mt. Hercules Reserve, 120 m. CONIFERAE. Podocarpus spicatus: Auckland, Mt. Pihanga, 800 m. LAURACEAE. Beilschmiedia tawa: Auckland, Titirangi, 250 m; Earthquake Flat, Rotorua, 600 m. LILIACEAE. Rhipogonum scandens: Auckland, Mountain Road, Henderson, 200 m. MIMOSACEAE. Acacia melanoxylon: Auckland, Silverdale, 30 m. VIOLACEAE. Melicytus ramiflorus: Wellington, Pohangina Valley, 300 m. WINTERACEAE. Pseudowintera colorata: Auckland, Hauhangaroa Ranges, Taupo, 500 m. UNKNOWN HOSTS. Auckland, Mt. Wellington, 130 m; Ruatewhenua, Waitakere Ranges, 300 m. Nelson, Murchison, 140 m. New South Wales, Lindfield; Kendall; Neutral Bay. Victoria, Ballarat. South Australia, National Park, Mt. Lofty, Encounter Bay.

Hymenophore annual, membranous, fragile, loosely attached, rhizomorphic, effused forming irregular areas to 10 x 4 cm; hymenial surface pallid ochre or isabelline, even or as often farinose, scantily creviced when old and tending to lift at edges of crevices; margin thinning out, often strongly rhizomorphic, fibrillose, loosely attached, concolorous. Context bay or ferruginous, 100-400 µm thick, basal layer narrow, of parallel hyphae, often reduced to a few repent hyphae, intermediate layer of somewhat loosely arranged hyphae ascending at a wide angle, encrusted with granules of brown mucilage, often embedding masses of crystals; generative hyphae 4-8 µm diameter, walls 0.25 µm thick, hyaline, sometimes constricted at septa, without clamp connections. Metuloids arising from the hymenium and base of the subhymenium, a few projecting to 40 µm, narrowly conical or subfusiform, 32-80 x 10-16 µm, encrusted for the greater part of their length with coarse crystals. Hymenial layer to 60 µm deep, a closely arranged palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and metuloids. Basidia subclavate, 20-26 x 4-5 µm, bearing 2-4 spores; sterigmata slender, erect, to 7 µm, long. Paraphyses subclavate, 20-25 x 3-4 µm. Spores oval or elliptical, apiculate, 5-6 x 2.5-3 µm, walls smooth, hyaline; 0.2 µm thick.

DISTRIBUTION: North America, Europe, Great Britain, West Indies, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand.

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

Context hyphae afford a ready means of identifying the species. They are stout, thin walled, and so heavily encrusted with masses of mucilage granules as to appear brown in sections, although walls are hyaline. Granules are soluble in potassium hydroxide solutions, turning them a characteristic vinaceous colour, and in alcohol, which is coloured orange. Other basidiomycetes producing similar mucilage are Odontia archeri, Grandinia australis, and Polyporus rutilans.

TYPE LOCALITY: Alabama, U.S.A.