Colenso. — Bush Jottings. 309 



has other peculiarities. Unfortunately, the description of 

 I. cibarium in Hooker's " Flora of New Zealand" is very in- 

 sufficient. This species is pure- white, of an oblong shape, 

 somewhat resembling that of a large inflated bladder of open 

 network, being 14in. long and 9in. wide, possessing twenty-two 

 large pentangular irregular-size meshes, the largest being 

 about 4in. by 2in. ; their ribs very wide, 6-8 lines, and much 

 corrugated and pitted, with peculiar triangular holes in the 

 middle of the rib at each outer angle : its volva, originally 

 before bursting about the size of a pigeon's egg, is thickish, 

 gelatinous, and strongly marked internally with white cross- 

 lines corresponding with the more prominent net-like ribs of 

 the pileus when closely compressed within. 



But its curious history has yet to be told. It was late in 

 the autumn (May), when I was in a grassy spot on the con- 

 fines of a small retired wood (whither I had often been in 

 former years), when on seating myself on a dead prostrate 

 tree I noticed two or three common specimens of I. cibarium 

 showing themselves among the low herbage ; I collected them. 

 On looking more closely I saw an olive-coloured egg-shaped 

 fungoid substance peering up from the ground underneath a 

 thick branch of the tree on whish I was sitting, apparently as 

 if it were pressed down by the branch. I broke the branch 

 off carefully, when the egg-like substance rapidly burst open, 

 and up sprang this fine specimen as if forcibly ejected by a 

 spring, unfolding itself immediately to its full size. Its 

 sudden and unexpected movement startled me ; but after ad- 

 miring this wondrous production of Nature, and its astonish- 

 ing internal powers, — seeing, too, it was but a weak and flimsy 

 tender substance without nerves, — I brought it carefully away 

 in my handkerchief, and, after washing it with a feather in re- 

 peated waters (to remove its copious brownish slime of a most 

 disagreeable odour, which is common to them all, including 

 the closely-allied and handsome genus Aseroe), I dried it, and 

 its volva or case, as a good specimen. 



In former years (in the forties), before the introduction 

 of cattle, specimens of I. cibarium were not unfrequently to be 

 met with in open fern-lands, and generally fully expanded, 

 usually from 3in. to 4in. diameter, and nearly globular ; but I 

 never before witnessed the bursting of a volva. The apparent 

 strength, or power, shown by this small, soft, and tender 

 fungus reminded me strongly of what we have read as recorded 

 of some of the mushroom-like genus (Agaricus) in their dis- 

 placing and forcing up the flat stones in city pavements. 



As before stated by me in former papers read here, these 

 fungi while in their young, unbroken egg-like condition were 

 formerly eaten by the Maoris ; in that state they have none of 

 that offensive ill-odour that pertains only to the fully-expanded 



