MR. GEORGE MURRAY ON TWO NEW SPECIES OF LENTINUS. 231 
certainty in a matter of this kind, yet it may be urged from this evidence that Fries 
was probably nearer the truth than Mr. Berkeley, and that there is at all events a strong 
presumption in favour of regarding Rumphius's Zuber regium as a sclerotium like to, if 
not identical with, the one I have described here. Though the Lentinus is of a different 
species (at least I should not be justified in regarding it as the same from the description) 
this brings no direct evidence against the opinion. 
Dr. H. B. Guppy, who spent some time in the Solomon Islands, having seen this 
Samoan specimen, has kindly furnished me with a note on the occurrence of similar 
bodies in the Solomon Islands. He says:— 
* My attention was first directed to these singular bodies in 1882 by the traders living 
on the island of Santa Anna at the eastern end of the group, and I at once set about 
learning more about them. In external appearance they somewhat resemble a Yam, 
and are usually about two pounds in weight, and others attain even a greater size. They 
lie unattached on the soil, scattered about among fragments of coral-limestone, and did 
not come under my notice in islands other than of calcareous formation. At first I 
thought they might have dropped from the branches of trees, but the position of many 
of them negatived this idea. In the opinion of the natives of Santa Anna, who have 
named them in their own tongue ‘devil’s testicles,’ they are poisonous. Inside they 
are white, sometimes with a waxy look, and the larger ones when eut across look like 
compressed flour. Mr. Stephens, a trader at Ugi, an adjacent island, on learning that I 
was curious about them, procured some, and subsequently informed me that from one 
of them sprung mushroom-like growths which fell away in a few weeks. I had no 
opportunity of seeing these mushroom-like growths myself, nor had they come under 
the notice of previous residents in the group. These tuberous masses, however, were 
new to them as well as to me, and might easily escape observation on account of their 
dark colour matching that of the soil as well as the hue of the weathered surface of the 
coral-limestone fragments. As far as І can judge now, they appear identical with the 
specimen from Samoa in your collection." 
Dr. Guppy recommended one of the traders to cook one of these bodies, “but only a 
tasteless fibrous substance resulted." He has kindly offered to write to one of the traders 
to make observations and send home specimens, and the result cannot fail to be of 
interest. It is particularly to be hoped that the origin of the large sclerotium may be 
discovered. 
Since the above was written, Mr. Broome has with very great kindness shown me a 
specimen of Lentinus cyathus, Berk. & Broome, growing on a large sclerotium, from 
Brisbane. Тһе sclerotium is of almost identical appearance with mine, and I had already 
noted the fact that my Lentinus scleroticola stands very near to Г. cyathus, Berk. & 
Broome. An examination of Mr. Broome’s excellent specimen confirms me in this 
opinion, and in fact I would place the species side by side. 2. scleroticola differs from 
L. cyathus in the gills being much finer and far more numerous, in the pileus being 
thinner and more deeply infundibuliform, and in the tapering downwards of the stem 
&e. The rhizoids of Г. cyathus penetrate the sclerotium in precisely the same fashion, 
and I notice besides on the outside of its sclerotium several pits where former plants of 
