Spores: medium sized (8-9 × 7-8 µm) and globose under the microscope. It grows on various broad leaved trees, especially ash where it causes a spongy, white heart-wood rot. The flesh contains hyphae with thick, brown walls. _Illustrations_: LH 63; WD 96¹. [Illustration: Plate 45. Woody fungi--annual polypores] ~Phaeolus schweinitzii~ (Fries) Patouillard Cap: 100-300 mm, bracket-shaped or tub-shaped, dark brown with a knobbly, velvety, roughened and grooved surface; margin at first golden yellow. Stem: absent or short, thick and brown. Tubes and pores: greenish yellow. Flesh: deep rust-brown. Spore-print: greenish yellow. Spores: medium sized, greenish under the microscope, ellipsoid and about 8 × 4 µm in size, (7-8 × 3-4 µm). This fungus is found on conifers or near conifer stumps where it is attached to the roots; it causes a brown cubical heart-wood rot; the flesh of the fruit-body is composed of only one type of hyphae. _Illustrations_: LH 67; NB 111³; WD 95¹. ~Meripilus giganteus~ (Fries) Karsten Giant polypore Cap: 75-100 mm, or even up to 200 mm wide, grouped and forming a tuft of caps up to 750 mm across. The individual caps are fan-shaped, pliable, rather thin and yellow-brown to snuff-brown with their margins wavy and cream colour or yellowish. Stem: replaced by a united mass of caps. Tubes, pores and flesh: white and very soft, but becoming black on bruising. Spores: small, pip-shaped, hyaline under the microscope and 5-6 × 4-5 µm. This fungus is a common sight forming masses at the base of broad-leaved trees; it is common on beech. It is a soft, fibrous polypore as a result of the lack in the flesh of thick-walled specialised hyphae. _Illustrations_: Hvass 277; LH 73; NB 129⁴; WD 93¹. The spores of all the annual polypores described above do not blue when placed in solutions containing iodine. ~Coriolus versicolor~ (Fries) Quélet Many zoned polypore _Cap_: 25-60 mm. _Stem_: absent. _Description_: Plate 46. Cap: semi-circular, flattened, thin, tough and flexible when fresh with the surface velvety and marked with smoother, paler concentric zones giving a pattern of yellow-brown, grey or darker greenish grey zones; the margin is thin and is the palest of the zones and may be wavy or lobed. Tubes: white with small, round and rough-edged to angular white or cream-coloured pores which become yellowish with age. Flesh: white, tough and continuous with the tube tissue and so not allowing one to detect any difference between the tissues. Spore-print: white. Spores: medium sized, oblong and hyaline under the microscope, and 6-8 × 2-3 µm; not blueing in solutions containing iodine. _Habitat_ & _Distribution_: Very common on stumps, trunks and fallen branches of various trees, especially beech; it is to be found throughout the year.