Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/703

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assume a very different appearance, so as not to be recognizable, but actually assume a different chemical character. Such are several of the Trichiæ, and I suspect this to be very nearly related to Trichia nuda, tab. 50, which I have detected very nearly in this state in Kensington Gardens and the Grove, Lambeth. Thus if this substance is found and watched, perhaps a few hours or the next day may have completed its change to such a state in which it may be recognized; at present it appears to be beginning to form into lengthened heads, leaving a part for the stipes, like a very close congeries of unripened Trichia nuda, and it has apparently surrounded stalks, leaves, &c. copiously as Trichia nuda often does. It burns with a vegetable, and not au animal scent, as also does Tremella nostec, English Botany, 461. Frog-spawn, either with or without the little embryo which has been taken for the seeds, may be detected by this means, as when burnt it has the smell of burnt bones. My highly esteemed and ingenious friend, the Rev. H. Davies, has greatly elucidated this subject in Welch Botanology, pages 115, 116, 117.


TAB. CCCCXXXVI.

SPHÆRIA multicapsula.

Mr. Thomas Purton sent me this from Alcester on the 2nd of Nov. 1810. It is in the aggregate, a flattish or conical, somewhat spreading mass, deep brown, and a little rugged externally: mouths of the capsules obsolete: when cut laterally it is very black, and the sphærules appear crowded in two or three irregular tiers above each other, and are about the size of the air-vessels in the wood which are dry and blackish in its vicinity, and look nearly like a continuance of it,


TAB. CCCCXXXVII.

SPHÆRIA pedunculata. Dicks. 4. 27.

Dr. ABBOT was so kind as to send me specimens of this in April, 1805, from Bedford. The species comprehends Sphæria pedunculata and varieties bicapitated in the usual state of monoicous plants, either with peduncles or sessile, besides the longer rhizomorphous looking stipes and root. I suspect it may possibly be thought a sportive variety of Sphæria hypoxilon, tab, 55, as well as S. ramosa, tab. 395. One of the specimens had a roughly tuberous base.


TAB. CCCCXXXVIII.
See Tab. 420, lower figures.

SPHÆRIA fleuns.

My kind friend Charles Lyell, Esq. sent me this some time since from the New Forest. It seems to flow in cracks of the