Order Htmenomycetes. Tribe Cupulati. 



Plate XIII. 



PEZIZA BADIA, var, Pmoo. 



Bric/ht-brown Peziza. 

 Series Aleukia. Sub-genvis Megalopyxis. 



Spec. Char. Peziza badia. rrom one inch to two inches or more broad, sub-csespitose, nearly sessile, irre- 

 gular, flexiious, entire, margin at first involute ; extremely changeable in colour, which greatly depends on the state 

 of moisture ; within, brown, rufous-purplish or olive, without paler, whitish, pruinose, \ti11ous and often lacunose at 

 the base. The same individual loses colour in diy weather, or becomes dark when charged with rain, so as to be 

 scarcely recognizable. 

 Peziza badia, Persooii, Berkeley, Fries. 



Hab. In gardens ; at the edges of lawns in flower-beds ; not rare near London. Spring and summer. Esculent. 



For several seasons this truly elegant Peziza has appeared after heavy spring and summer rains, run- 

 ning in groups along the edge of the sod bordering a peat-bed, on the lawn at Hayes Rectory ; preferring 

 those portions shaded by the decumbent brandies of Daphne Cneorum, a most fragrant and elegant bower for 

 the delicate waxy cups, so easily chipped and split. Having, at the time we found Peziza badia, the loan 

 of a most perfect microscope, an excellent opportunity was afforded of studying the structure of the hyme- 

 nium. The tubes were compactly wedged together, but each distinct and separable from the others, like 

 the tubes of a Boletus, the lower portions being immersed in the substance of the fungus. Each contained, 

 universally, eight sporidia, closely packed, not like a rouleau of money, in the case, but at an angle with 

 it ; this may be very distinctly seen, from the transparency of the cases. At tliis period the mouths of tlie 

 tubes were closed, and the sporidia lay in them, all at the same angle ; when the Peziza had attained, or 

 rather passed, full maturity (for it was beginning to fade), a curious change took place — the upper two or three 

 sporidia placed themselves at an angle exactly the reverse of their prior position, in opposition to those re- 

 maining below, which thus were enabled to give their brethren a shove, to assist them in exploding from 

 their case. Such explosions took place under a glass, where no current of air could interfere; but when the 

 glass was removed, a puff of wind or of tlie breath greatly facilitated the operation. Each dust-like particle 

 was not simple, but a sac, containing two other small bodies ! Those minute reproductive bodies which are 

 called spores when placed on a pedestal-like support called a sporophore, as in Agarics, are called sporidia 

 when packed in tubes called asci or thecce, as in the Helvellaceous and Cupulate funguses. In the present 

 case, the sporidia themselves containing other bodies, the technical expression to describe the inner surface 

 of the Peziza badia cup is tins : " Hymenium superior, consisting of fixed asci, accompanied by paraphyses 

 (abortive asci). Sporidia eight, each containing two sporidiola." 



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