GYROMITRA. 479 



passing with age into pale ochre, and then to fulvous- 

 brown ; stem short, thick, or sometimes absent. The flesh 

 was somewhat waxy and exceedingly brittle. In section 

 there was no sterile axis above the stem, the pileus con- 

 sisting within of irregular cavities, divided and subdivided 

 by double walls which were clothed with the hymenium. 

 I found the asci to be cylindrical, furnished with eight 

 elliptic sporidia [spores], 10-12 X 6-7 fx; paraphyses 

 slender, somewhat thickened at the apices. 



Gyromitra gigas (Kronibh.), Cooke, Phillips in Journ. Bot., 

 vol. xxxi. p. 129, pi. 334 (1893). 



Sherborne, Oxfordshire, in a field on a hill-side, under 

 beech-trees, having somewhat the appearance of Sj)arassis 

 crispa. 



The above is the account of a fungus which Phillips con- 

 siders to be the true Helvella gigas of Krombholz, rather 

 than the one accepted and figured by Cooke as such in 

 Mycographia, fig. 327. Phillips considers that the spores of 

 his specimens, measuring 10-12 x 6-7 fx and 2-guttulate, 

 are more in accordance with the figure of the spores given 

 by Krombholz than with those figured by Cooke. I differ 

 entirely from this opinion ; we do not know the exact mag- 

 nification of the spores figured by Krombhloz, but in his 

 diagnosis of the species he says, " sporis magnis," and his 

 spores of H. gigas ( = Gyromitra gigas) are slightly larger 

 than the spores of his Helvella esculenta ( = Gyromitra escu- 

 lenta), figured on the same page, which is in accordance with 

 the views of Cooke, but certainly not of Phillips. Under 

 the circumstances, I consider the plant noted by Phillips as a 

 previously undescribed species, remarkable for its great size, 

 as also for its very small spores. 



Gyromitra esculenta. Fries, Summa Veg. Scand., 

 p. 346 ; Phil., Disc. Brit., p. 8, pi. 1, fig. 2 ; Cooke, Mycogr., 

 fig. 328; Sacc, Syll., viii. n. 35. (figs. 14, 15, p. 188.) 



Hymenophore subglobose, rather depressed, 4-7 cm. across, 

 3-6 cm. high, irregularly hollow, undulated, wavy and 

 rugose, margin attached here and there to the stem, brown ; 

 stem 3-7 cm. high, 2-3 cm, thick, even or more or less 

 lacunose, sometimes attenuated upwards, whitish, minutely 

 downy, stuffed then hollow; asci cylindrical, apex obtuse, 



