Order Hymenomycetks. 'I'ribe Pilcati. 



Plate IV. 



D^DALIA GIBBOSA, Persoon. 

 Gibbous Bcsdalia. 



Gen. Char. Hymenium composed of anastomosing gills or flexuous elongated pores, formed out of the corky 

 substance of the pileus. Named from Dadalus, in allusion to the labyrinthiform disposition of the hymenium. 



Spec. Char. Djedalia gibbosa. Sessile, dimidiate, zoned, corky, hard, elastic ; zones convex and tubercu- 

 lated ; dirty white, villous or beautifully velvety, when old cinereous, and gi-een from minute algse ; the edge 

 obtuse or subacute, often projecting at the base and very gibbous ; but not invariably so. Substance white, spores 

 extremely narrow and close, resembling elongated meshes of fine lace, except at the base, where they are rounder 

 and irregidar ; white in youth, in age cream-coloui-. 

 D.EDALIA gibbosa, Persoon, Berkeley. 

 Trametes Trlei. 



Hab. On the stumps of various felled trees, often springing from fissures upon the horizontal sawed surface. 

 Rare. 



This uncommon and extremely pretty Dreilalia we have been fortunate enough to find twice, at Wy- 

 mondham, in Norfolk, and on Hayes Common. In both places the manner of growth was similar, so that 

 we may fairly suppose it generally adopts that style of development. In both cases trees had been felled 

 by the saw, leaving a stump about a foot above ground : the timber at Wymondham was ash, at Hayes, 

 lime, botli bad been cut down about two years ; the slabs of wood cracking in the centre, as is generally the 

 case under such circumstances, the fungus appeared from the fissures in little velvety hemispherical no- 

 dules, slightly corrugated, and continued long in this state, without signs of the hymenium in the shape of 

 pore or siims. When any of these nodules formed near the edges of the slab, they expanded into the gibbous 

 forms of pileus which are proper characteristics of the species. One of the Wymondham specimens was 

 larger than that now depicted, and more spathulate, measuring about five inches by three ; its dehcate hy- 

 menium was crumbling to decay, and as every chance appeared to be in favour of its unchecked growth in 

 that habitat, it is fair to presume that it is the full size it attains. 



The period through which it continues to gain a gradual increment is not easily determined ; the Nor- 

 folk specimen cited above, could not be more than two years old, though apparently disintegrating, but it 

 was evidently injured by boring insects, leaving dust on their traces : it was not a fair case of decay, possibly. 

 One year appears to change the poreless nodules scarcely at all ; we have remarked the same thing with 

 similar juvenile members of B. quercina ; and then suddenly a magnificent pileus has been developed. 



