REVISIONS OF CEYLON FUNGI. 277 



substance is soft, spongy, and fibrillose, up to 1 cm. thick. 

 The pilei are minutely tomentose, sometimes smooth, but 

 usually clothed with radiating innate fascicles of coarse 

 fibrils. The margin is usually thick when fresh. The aculei 

 are conical, terete, entire, and up to 8 mm. long. 



In drying, the pilei become much thinner, and the appear- 

 ance of the fungus alters considerably. In some places the 

 margins of the pilei become quite thin and cartilaginous when 

 dry, sometimes for a breadth of more than a centimetre, 

 though there is no sign of that when the fungus is fresh. Such 

 cartilaginous margins are sterile below, or bear aculei in early 

 stage of development. At first sight it would appear that 

 the pilei possess an inner cartilaginous layer which develops 

 more rapidly than either the hymenial layer or the upper 

 layers of the pileus, but sections do not uphold that supposi- 

 tion, for the cartilaginous margin is contmuous with normal 

 hyphse behind. Coarse cartilaginous strands do, however, 

 occur in the white flesh, especially running longitudinally in 

 the pseudostalk, and Berkeley and Broome noted that the 

 substance of the fungus is " mixed with cartilaginous bodies 

 like those with which the pileus is clothed." As the herbarium 

 specimens bear strong radiating innate fascicles of coarse 

 fibrils, it must be supposed that the " bodies " referred to 

 were cartilaginous strands. This development of a margin 

 which becomes cartilaginous when dry, or of cartilaginous hairs 

 on the pileus, is not dependent upon the age of the pileus, i.e., 

 it is not necessarily a normal feature of young pilei : one young 

 specimen recently gathered, in which the pilei do not exceed 

 one centimetre in breadth, has a white swollen margin when 

 dry, and no evidence of any cartilaginous structure in any 

 part. The development of that particular feature would 

 appear to depend rather upon the weather conditions prevail- 

 ing at the time of growth. 



Neither on the specimens in the Peradeniya Herbarium nor 

 on those recently collected do the aculei exceed one centi- 

 metre in length ; it would appear therefore that Berkeley and 

 Broome's measurement is a mistake, as far as the Ceylon 

 species is concerned. The fungus bears no resemblance 

 whatever to Hydnoglcea {Tremellodon) when fresh. 



