The =pileus= is hemispherical to convex, shaggy from numerous large blackish, coarse, hairy, projecting scales. The margin of the cap is fringed with scales and fragments of the veil which covers the tubes in the young plants. The flesh is whitish, but soon changes to reddish color, and later to black where wounded or cut. The =tubes= are adnate, whitish, becoming brown and blackish in the older plants. The mouths of the tubes are large and angular, and change color where bruised, as does the flesh of the cap. The stem is even, or sometimes tapers upward, often grooved near the apex, very tomentose or scaly with soft scales of the same color as the cap. The =spores= are in mass dark brown, nearly globose, roughened, and 10--12 µ long. Figs. 177--179 are from plants collected at Ithaca, N. Y. Another European plant, _S. floccopus_ Vahl, is said by Peck to occur in the United States, but is much more rare. The only difference in the two noted by Peck in the case of the American plants is that the tubes are depressed around the stem in _S. floccopus_. [Illustration: PLATE 64, FIGURE 177.--Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Scales of cap dark brown or black, flesh white but soon changing to reddish and later to black where wounded, stem same color but lighter (natural size). Copyright.] [Illustration: FIGURE 178.--Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Sections of plants. Copyright.] [Illustration: FIGURE 179.--Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Under view. Copyright.] FISTULINA Bull. In the genus _Fistulina_ the tubes, or pores, are crowded together, but stand separately, that is, they are not connected together, or grown together into a stratum as in _Boletus_ and other genera of the family _Polyporaceæ_. When the plant is young the tubes are very short, but they elongate with age. =Fistulina hepatica= Fr. =Edible.=--This is one of the largest of the species in the genus and is the most widely distributed and common one. It is of a dark red color, very soft and juicy. It has usually a short stem which expands out into the broad and thick cap. When young the upper side of the cap is marked by minute elevations of a different color, which suggest the papillæ on the tongue; in age the tubes on the under surface have also some such suggestive appearance. The form, as it stands outward in a shelving fashion from stumps or trees, together with the color and surface characters, has suggested several common names, as beef tongue, beef-steak fungus, oak or chestnut tongue. The plant is 10--20 cm. long, and 8--15 cm. broad, the stem very short and thick, sometimes almost wanting, and again quite long. I have seen some specimens growing from a hollow log in which the stems were 12--15 cm. long.