FILICALES. Cyathea dealbata: Auckland, Waikaretu, 130 m. LAURACEAE. Litsea calicaris: Auckland, Tasman Valley, Great King Island. PAPILIONIACEAE. Cytisus scoparius: Auckland, Waitetoki, Lake Taupo, 400 m. UNKNOWN HOST. Wellington, Ruahine Ranges.

Hymenophore annual, arachnoid, adherent, effused forming small irregular areas to 8 x 3 cm; hymenial surface sulphur yellow or chrome, farinose, not creviced; margin thinning out, arachnoid, concolorous, adherent, sometimes rhizomorphic. Context yellow, either composed of rhizomorphic strands each formed from 2-6 cemented hyphae with a loose weft of solitary hyphae between, forming a scanty reticulated tissue to 30 µm deep; or of an intermediate layer of mainly erect hyphae arising from a narrow basal layer of a few repent hyphae and embedding numerous spores; generative hyphae 3-6 µm diameter, walls 0.2 µm thick, often encrusted, sometimes inflated between septa, with clamp connections. Hymenial layer either a continuous palisade, or composed of short lateral branches arising from rhizomorphs and bearing 2-5 basidia and paraphyses. Basidia cylindrical or subclavate, 8-12 x 6-7 µm, bearing 4 spores; sterigmata slender, to 6 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 6-8 x 5-6 µm. Spores subglobose, oval, or broadly elliptical, 5-7 x 4-5.5 µm (including spines), walls finely and closely echinulate, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick; spines to 4 µm long.

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

HABITAT: Effused on decorticated. decayed wood and fern stipes.

Taxonomists differ as to whether the species should be placed under Corticium or Tomentella. Because spores are hyaline and the hymenium is frequently arranged in the form of a definite palisade, it is treated as a Corticium herein. The collection from the Ruahine Ranges exhibits the Tomentella structure, the others the Corticium form seen in some European collections. The species may be separated from C. tulasnelloideum, which it resembles in the echinulate spores, by the conspicuous yellow colour of the surface and usual presence of rhizomorphs either in the context or at margins. Colour sometimes fades from the central portions, but is retained in the margins. An extensive synonymy is given by Rogers & Jackson (1943, p. 308).

TYPE LOCALITY: Europe.