CoLENSO. — On Tu'O New CryiHogamic Plants. 451 



examination, from known foreign ones, which will be found 

 from the description. 



II. This species differs from I. lacustris, Linn., of the 

 British lakes (probably also cosmopolitan), in its peculiarly- 

 formed thick tuberous root with its hyaline scales, its longer 

 and narrower and differently- constructed leaves, and more 

 slender sporangia. In its tuberous root it slightly resembles 

 I. durim, Bory (a French species, but lately found also in the 

 Island of Guernsey), and also I. hystrix, Durieu (an Algerian 

 species), but it is a much larger plant than either, with very 

 different leaves, &c., and its root also w^ants the peculiar 

 rigid, trifid, and pungent scales of /. duricBi, and the long, 

 black incurved spines of I. hystrix. 



III. Preserving some of their roots, I cleaned and placed 

 them in a clear glass vase, covering them with water. They 

 soon sprouted fresh leaves, and have gi'own nicely, with 

 many young plants as fine as hairs springing from their 

 sporangia. 



Order VIII. Fungi. 



Genus 27.''= Geaster, Micheli. 



1. G. coriaccus, sp. nov. 



Otcter peridium 4-|in. diameter, expanded, broadly hemi- 

 spherical at base, very thick — sub 2 lines or more, leathery, 

 tough, firm and rigid when dry, divided about half-way down 

 into 5 pretty equal broadly-triangular acute spreading seg- 

 ments, their tips very distant, each lin. wide at base, much 

 recurved and deeply transversely fissured creased and wrinkled 

 above at base, their fissures, &c., of a pale colour, dark 

 blackish-brown rough and much reticulated on the outside, 

 smooth and somewhat shiny and light-brown on the inside, 

 with a continuous thick border at their inner bases raised all 

 round much above the inner peridium, the large hemispherical 

 sac or cup being Ifin. diameter, and fully fin. deep ; in?ier 

 peridium IJin. diameter, globular, thin, papery, somewhat 

 smooth but not shiny (under a lens very slightly but evenly 

 roughish, as if finely felted), sessile, the junction being small, 

 very free all round, dark-brown, having a depressed coronula 

 4 lines diameter, with its centre raised and of a lighter 

 brown, the ostiole large — 1^ lines diameter, gaping, margins 

 irregular, incurved, thickly silky and sub-ciliate. Spores very 

 minute, spherical, "go^^^in. diameter, studded with minute 

 processes ; under the microscope are numerous puncta, evi- 

 dently the places where the processes are attached on the 

 flattened surface" (Dr. Spencer, m lit.). 



Hah. On the ground at Tangoio, near Napier ; 1889 : Mr. 

 A. Hamilton. 



* The number of this genus in Hooker's " Handbook N.Z. Flora." 



