38 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



It was first detected and described in Algeria. In 

 February 1876 it was recorded as British by Berkeley and 

 Broome (No. 161 9), on the evidence of specimens sent by 

 the Rev. M. L. Anderson from St. Andrews in Fife. In 

 Phillips's " British Discomycetes ' it is also recorded from 

 Brampton Burrows, Ilfracombe ; and in Saccardo's " Sylloge 

 Fungorum," viii. p. 70, it is recorded under the name Geo- 

 pyxis arenaria as " immersa in sabulosis ad radices Psammce 

 in Britannia, Gallia, et Algeria." My personal acquaintance 

 with the fungus commenced on 17th October 1888, when I 

 found two examples growing among loose sand on the Links 

 of Menie, eight or ten miles north of Aberdeen. The dis- 

 covery was quite accidental, and was due to my kicking one 

 of the two under the impression that it was a nearly mature 

 puffball (Lycoperdoii), when the brittle texture at once showed 

 the true group of the fungus. A careful search failed to 

 disclose more of the cups at this time. 



I next met with one in September 1890, on the beach 

 north of the river Don, close to the high-tide mark. The 

 Lyme-grass {Elymus arenarius) has of late years become 

 much more plentiful on the coast of Aberdeenshire, where it 

 forms a belt along the seaward base of the sandhills, and 

 assists materially to protect them from being washed or 

 blown away, and adds to the width of the shore by preventing 

 the sand from blowing. Small quantities of Psamma aren- 

 aria, of Agropyrum junceum, and of the other grasses found 

 in such localities, are often mingled with the Elymus ; but 

 in many places the latter almost alone forms the belt. 

 P. ammophila appeared to be confined to this belt, over a 

 distance of about quarter of a mile in length by about ten 

 yards in breadth, growing most often in the more open sandy 

 spots, though at times also among the tufts of grasses. Far 

 the most of the cups were in the vicinity of the Elymus, 

 much less often among the other grasses. There seemed no 

 close relation between the fungus and the Psamma or the 

 other grasses, so far as I could trace. Though the roots of 

 all the grasses occasionally adhered to the so-called " stem ' 

 of the fungus, I could not satisfy myself of this connection 

 being more than casual. The cups usually appeared in small 

 groups of from two to four, probably from the same mycelium; 



