Order. Hyjvienojitcetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate VI. 



AURICULARIA MESENTERICA, BdUard. 



Gen. Char. Hymenium inferior, remotely and vaguely costato-plicate ; in wet weather swelling, gelatinous, 

 tremulous ; when dry collapsing but integrate, coriaceous, persistent. Hymenium heterogeneous from the pileus, not 

 concrete with it. 



Spec. Char. Auricularia mesenterica. At first effused, entirely resupinate, at length more or less re- 

 flexed, often dimidiate, occasionally infuudibuliform ; the upper surface villous, grey-browu, yellow, olive, &c., 

 fasciated and zoned ; gelatinous within. The hymenium quite smooth, or wrinkled when dry, pruinose from the 

 fructification ; purplish-violet or light brown. The whole plant gelatinous and tremulous in wet weather, hard, 

 cartilaginous and persistent when diy. 

 Auricularia mesenterica, Tries, Persoon. 



tremelloides, Bulliard, Withering. 



corrugata, Sowerhy. 



Phlebia mesenterica, Bickson, Berkeley (Plora vol.). 



Hab. On old trunks, rails, and the foot of trees. Very common. 



This fungas was for some time placed among the PJdebias, but its discrepancy with the strict botanical 

 , characters of that genus, was at the same time acknowledged ; and it is now classed with the Auricularias 

 of Fries, a very small section of his family Aitricularini, which includes the varieties of Thelep/tora ; the 

 generic name being given from the likeness of many to the ears of various animals. With these ears, however, 

 must not be confounded the notorious ones of Judas, Exidia aur'icidce Juda of elder-stumps, they being in 

 fact not ears at all, at least not mycologically Auricnles. A simple distinction may be pointed out : Auricu- 

 larias proper have the hymenium inferior ; the Tremellini, to which Exidias belong, have it superior. The 

 true Pklebias come under the Hydnei, an accommodating community, which receives all waifs and strays 

 disowned elsewhere : the bats of mycology are here received in right of their very ambiguity, not scouted on 

 account of it ; few tyros would suppose, if shown Fistuliiia hepatica, Hi/dnum auriscalpium, and Phlebia 

 merismoides, that they could by any possibility come under one category. The same fungus, however, 

 often differs from itself as strongly as from another species : the moist, tremulous, gelatinous state of 

 Auricularia mesenterica is extremely unlike the crisp, rigid, collapsed condition in which our plate repre- 

 sents it ; when growing on the earth, which it occasionally does, nurtured by buried wood, the development 

 is more rapid, and grass, straw, &c., become enveloped in its mass without changing their position. It is 

 insipid and scentless, but ought to be good for some purpose, one can scarcely doubt nutriment being- 

 present in its gelatinous texture. Tiie figure given in the plate was only a small portion of a very large 



