Order Gasteromycetes.' Sub-order Trichogastres.- 



PlateXVIT. Fig. 1. 



SCLERODERMA VERRUCOSUM, ^./z 



Warty Scleroderma. 



Gen. Cliar. Peridium rooting, hard, clothed with an innate bark, biu'sting irregularly ; flocci adnate to the whole 

 interiour of the peridium. Spores simple, placed in minute heaps. Name from <rK\t]p6s, hard, and Sepfia, the skin. 



Spec. Char. Scleroderma veerxjcosuji. Substipitate, peridiimi rounded, subverrucose, thin and brittle above, 

 pulp black-purple. Flocci and spores brown. 

 Scleroderma, vermcosum, I'rm, Fersoon, G-reviUe, Berkeley. 

 Lycoperdon veiTucosum, Bulliard, Withering. 

 defossum, Sowerby, TFifhering. 



Hall. On hedge banks, under oaks in pastures. 



Few persons who have picked up these small hard-coated puff-balls^ would suppose they had ever been 

 confounded with the subterranean Truffle, yet this is the case, and as the sineU when broken is pecuharly 

 unpleasant, resembling nothing witli which to compare it, and the inky hue of their contents is not calculated 

 to improve confidence in the virtues of the Selerodenua, we can imagine the consternation of an old English 

 cook, when offered such repulsive httle individuals, for that foreign luxury the Truffle ; most excusable in 

 such a case would be prejudice in favour of John Bull's roast beef as compared with outlandish dishes. 



It will, perhaps, be doubted if ignorance so complete of what a Truffle really is could exist. Certainly 

 it did, and doe.s, in parts of the country where the Tuher cibarium is not commonly collected ; the professed 

 Truffle hunter, who easily turns a pound weight of liis spoils into liaK-a-crown, jealously guards his knowledge 

 from the vulgar ; he tells the inquirer, as lie told White of Selborne, years ago, that " he knows of many 

 kinds," and misleads, as far as he can, every one whose researches are likely to interfere with liis gains. Poor 

 country people becoming aware that an edible dehcacy, which is bought at a good price for the tables of the 

 rich, grows in the neighbourhood, and finding something resembling it according to their ideas, offer for 

 sale, not only the right, but the wrong tiling very often ; and their assertions and recommendations should 

 be received with the greatest caution ; Sclerodermas for Trufiles ; Horse-muslirooms instead of the wholesome 

 A. camj)esiris ; a large Pcziza or the bottom of an exhausted puff-ball, for flap-mushrooms ; mistakes of this 

 kind are not so much to be attributed to cupidity, as to ignorance, and want of that habit of minute chscri- 

 miuation, wliicli general education gives to the min d. Many poor people might be well employed in bringing 

 from the field and woodlands, at early day, Pungus treasures which the more dehcately constitutioned botanist 



' From yaa-TTip, the stomach, and pvKr]s, a fungus, hymenimn included in the receptacle. 

 - From 6pi^, a hair, and yaarrip, the stomach ; receptacle filled with floccose hairs on which the spores are placed. 



