279 COMMENTARY ON THE PLANTS IN 
Bauhin's Hist. vol. iii. (1651), p. 841, and in Chabreei Stirp. Sciagr. 
(1666), p. 588, f. 2. Considering the striking similarity of all these 
figures, we are justified in assuming, that Piso has not been ‘over seru- 
pulous in this, as in other cases, to stock his book with figures taken 
from others, and not referable to Brazilian plants. The 4g. muscarius - 
has never been met with in that country either by myself or by other 
botanists. 
(The author next proceeds to suggest what Piso may have meant by 
his nine sorts. Trametes sanguinea, Fries, is called Urupé in the Tupis 
language, and is recommended in Brazil against hemoptysis, exactly as 
T. suaveolens is in Europe.) : 
The vegetation of Fungi in Brazil generally.—It is not seldom that 
tropical countries are considered as proportionably less fruitful in this 
family than in phanerogamie plants; but this is owing generally to our 
more confined knowledge of the former. Attracted by the magnificent 
flora, the travelling naturalist is diverted from its minor and less 
conspicuous forms, unless he continues in the country during a pro- 
tracted period. He finds it difficult, besides, to bring back to Europe 
the more evanescent and difficultly preserved Fungi, on purpose to ex- 
amine them there more leisurely. "This class of vegetation is by no 
means less abundant in hot climates than in temperate ones, especially 
where there is much moisture in the soil and the atmosphere, which is 
proved at once, by our list of nearly 200 Brazilian species. The part 
which Linné assigns to Fungi, in Nature's great household, in our 
latitudes, is in like manner performed by them in tropical climates, 
where an excessive luxuriance of life, leads to a proportionate amount 
of decay: “ Nomades, denudati, autumnales, fugaces, voraces, Flora 
reducente agmina colligunt earum quisquilias sordesque.” I was re- 
peatedly struck, in various parts of Brazil, with the amount and variety 
of its Fungi—emblems of the decay and death of a higher vegetation, 
and rising, as it were, from its tomb; f. i., in the wooded islands of the 
bay of Rio de Janeiro*, where, among various European sombre-co- 
loured forms, I found the blood-red Trametes sanguinea, and a splendid 
Trichia (expansa) of crimson and yellow colour. 
(The author then gives an account of the species of Mycelium, of Bra- 
 Zilian Fungi generally, and their contested place in the system, con 
cluding with the list of species alluded to above. All this highly 1n- 
* Voyage in Brazil, vol. i. p. 152. i 
