TERMITE fungi: A RESUME. 335 



Peziza is developed as soon as the mycelium reaches the surface 

 of the soil. 



The ascophores are scattered or clustered, united to the 

 soil by yellow mycelium ; they are first globose, and split off 

 a hemispherical cap, the shrivelled remains of which are often 

 attached to one side. The disc when fully expanded is plane 

 or undulating, up to 1-5 cm. diameter, glabrous, pale yellow 

 or bright orange-yellow when fresh, becoming orange-red 

 when dry. It is rather fleshy, and yellow internally. The 

 exterior is paler than the disc and somewhat scurfy. The 

 asci are narrow-cylindric, 85-120 x 6-7 [jl, with a slight curved 

 pedicel and eight uniseriate spores. The spores are oval, 

 hyaline, continuous, 6-7 X 3-5-4{j(.. The paraphyses are few 

 in number, as long as the asci, filiform, slightly inflated at the 

 top, septate, and sometimes branched. 



This species was collected three times by Thwaites, and his 

 gatherings were given three names by Berkeley and Broome, 

 viz., Peziza epispartia, P. flavotingens, and P. radiculosa. 

 Berkeley and Broome described P. radiculosa as " sending 

 down a long root or threads into the soil" ; Cooke, in Micro- 

 graphia, PI. 28, fig. 107, figures it with a long, thick, yellow 

 stalk, after the fashion of Peziza tricholoma, but Massee 

 correctly states (Jour. Linn. Soc, XXXI., p. 480) that 

 the ascophores when expanded lie flat dn the soil. Peziza 

 flavotingens was said to grow among fragments of herbs which 

 were bound together by the mycelium, as it does in damp 

 shrubberies, and Cooke's figure (Micrographia, fig. 38) is a 

 good representation of a cluster of ascophores ; the type 

 specimens of P. flavotingens are immature. The type specimens 

 of P. epispartia are identical with P. radiculosa ; Massee's 

 re-description of epispartia was based on the dried specimens , 

 and his colours are incorrect. Peziza epispartia is the earliest 

 name known at present. 



The Peziza has not been recorded from termite nests in any 

 other country, nor do there appear to be any other records of 

 the occurrence of these three (supposed) species except from 

 Ceylon. The latter fact is scarcely surprising, since the 

 published figures and descriptions do not bear much relation 

 to the actual fungus. From Java Penzig and Siaccardo have 



6(9)12 (43) 



