Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe CJavati. 



Plate IX. 



MITRULA PALUDOSA, i^/.. 



Marsh Mitrula. 



Gen. Char. Receptacle ovate, inilated, closely suiToundiiig with its base the distiiict stem. Name from the 

 receptacle resembling a Utile mitn. 



Spec. Char. M. paludos.v ; gregarious, cap variable in form, sometimes cloven, hollow, bright orange yellow ; 

 stem white; a-sci tubular ; sjwridia white. 



Mitrula paludosa. Fries, Berkeley. 

 Leotia Ludwigii, Fersoon. 



uliginosa, Greville. 



Clavaeia phalloides, BulUard. 



epiphyUa, Dickson, Witherimj, Soioerby. 



Hah. On dead leaves in bogs or shallow stagnant water ; autumn. 



This pretty little plant, altliough the first we introduce to our fi-iencls of the second di^nsioii, the 

 Clavate tribe of Funguses, is not to be taken as an example of the club-shaped forms assumed by many 

 members of that family, and from wliich their name is derived. Mitrula paludosa has a weU-defined inflated 

 head, placed upon a cyHudrical stem, but the true character of Clavaria is to have no distinction between 

 head and stem, merely a thickening upwards, equally differing from the Pileati on one hand, as from the 

 Mitrati on the other. It is not to be expected that every character of a tribe can apply with precision to 

 each branch of it, that certain botanical features sliould be coromon to all, is sufficient. One main distinction 

 of the Clavate family is the situation of the hymenium, or that part of the plant which contains reproductive 

 bodies, appearing in the form of dust. In the Pileati this property is placed under the pUeus or cap, and 

 is called inferior ; in the Clavati it is superior ; that is, lies externally upon the head," and on placing any 

 coral-formed specimens of Clavaria upon a plate of glass, their various ramifications will be prettily traced in 

 the ejected spores. The briglit yellow mitre of om' present subject, becomes covered as it matures with a 

 Tvhite^ bloom ; tlais consists of sporidia packed in cases (asci), but the naked eye does not distinguish the fact. 



That Nature abhors a vacuum was a pruiciple of old plulosophy wliich was certainly correct in so far 



' From clava, a club. 



^ It is usual to speak of this head, the clava, as a pUeus, which is a head-coveriug ; extreme precision of tei'ms may 

 appear needlessly formal, but it assists the student, and if the term ' pQeus ' is the distinctive appellation of a tiibe, 

 it should be restricted to that tribe. The Mitrati have caps also ; to call them ' pilei ' leads to confusion of ideas. 

 It woidd not do to talk of the ' mitre ' of an Agaric ; why, then, of the ' pileus ' of a MorcheUa ? With a Clavaria 

 it is still less proper, since, although that Fungus posesses a head, it has neither cap nor bonnet to put upon it. 



