curl off the wood they grow upon. At the fame time as no author has noticed 

 it in the flate in which it is here reprefented, I feel a pleafure in probably contri- 

 buting to throw fome light upon it, and I leave it to future naturalifls to deter- 

 mine its place in the fyftcm. 



I received the fpecimen from which the prefent drawing was made from my 

 friend T. W. Dyer, Efq. who gathered it in Somerfetihire. It grows on decay- 

 ing wood, in patches of various fizes, and of a beautiful and vivid violet color, 

 which is permanent many years after it has been dried. The filaments are fo 

 extremely fhort and much interwoven that the patches to the naked eye greatly 

 refemble the cruft of a lichen, but their filamentous nature is in mod fpecimens* 

 obfervable with the afliftance of a common glafs. The minutenefs is fuch that 

 it is impoflible to feparate them, fo as to afcertain the precife length or the 

 frequency of their ramifications, but I apprehend the former rarely exceeds half 

 a line, and that there are feldom more than one or two branches on each filament. 

 The diffepiments are by no means fo eafily difcerned, or fo regular as in C. pur- 

 purea, but are here and there obfervable, and divide the filaments into joints, of 

 which the length exceeds the diameter. No fructification has been difcovered. 



A. C. phofphorea, on decaying wood, natural fize. 



B. C. magnified i. 



* I have examined fome fpecimens in which I could not detect them at all, and I therefore feel 

 feme doubt whether they may not be peculiar to a certain age or ftate of the plant. 



