as perfect species of TJielephora ", agreeing with liim tliat this is " rather vague ", we can only improve upon 

 it by distinctions of a negative kind ; they never have pores, like the Poli/porus family ; the hymenium is 

 never a gelatinous membrane Hke those of Hxidias, Tremellas, &c., with which they were formerly classed 

 under the general name Aurieularia,^ from a fancied resemblance to the ears of animals. Tlie surface from 

 wliich the spores are emitted is of a smooth velvet texture, without veins or teeth ; in some varieties little 

 eminences or tubercles (whence the name) arise in it, but the texture is not affected thereby. The upper 

 surface of those wliich possess a pileus, is often zoned, wrinkled, and covered with shaggy down or velvety 

 plush. The substance is altogether concrete and homogeneous, that is, of one substance, not of two parts 

 wliich can be pulled away from each other, as the tubes and flesh of a Boletus may easily be, thereby showing 

 their distinct nature. 



Plate XX. B. 



THELEPHORA C M^V L'E A, sckrader. 



Spec. Cliar. Effused, confluent, adnata, sub-tomentose, bright-blue, at fii'st byssoid, but when fully developed 

 forming a close membrane, foUowing the undulation of the wood on which it grows. Of a beautiful dark satiny 

 blue, the margins whitish. 



Thelephora cserulea, Schrader, Fries, Berkeley, Persoon. 

 Byssus phosphorea, Linnmus, Witliermg. 

 AuKicuLARiA phosphorea, Sowerby, Purton. 



Hub. On very wet decaying wood, sticks, rails, &c. 



This is one of those Thelephoras which continue always resupiuate, the seed-surface uppermost, never 

 forming anything resembUng a pileus ; it consists at first of very fine short upright down, " much finer than 

 the finest wool" (With.); it resembles in fact effused velvet, forming a beautiful blue film with downy 

 margins, over extremely decayed moist wood, to the sinuosities of which it closely adapts itself. Fries 

 describes it as beset with bristles in with state it probably was seen by Withering, who, following Lirmeeus 

 classes it vritli Bj/ssus, and says " it has the joints rather long ", Mr. Berkeley had not however verified this 

 fact, and certainly they are not present in many specimens, perhaps appeai'uig only at one period of growth. 

 TJielephora carulea abounds in the woods of Sussex, the peculiar colour will always serve to identify it, and 

 it is one of the most striking instances which can be pointed out, of the manner in which nature replaces one 

 form of life by another, at the same time veiHng inevitable decay in a robe of beauty. 



' The genus Utelephora was separated from Auricularia by Fries, on account of the quarternary arrangement of 

 the spores. 



