CEYLON FUNGI. • 33 



size ; coniatus is covered with dust-like particles, wiiich is not 

 a fit character on which to separate a gathering after the 

 specimens have been dried, poisoned, pressed, and kept for 

 five years ; semipellucidus'hdi.s a stalk pellucid above, which is 

 quite a valueless character ; and atroruhens, according to 

 description of the original Surinam specimen, has a velvety- 

 stem. It is worthy of note that the original description of 

 atroruhens was founded on a single specimen picked out of a 

 gathering of M. hcematocephalus. It will probably be found 

 that the last name will cover a large number of the redbrown 

 sulcate Marasmii which have been described from the Tropics, 

 but as far as Ceylon is concerned, BerReley and Broome have 

 confused matters by referring to this species Thwaites 752, the 

 figure of which shows a purple pileus. 



Our largest Pluteus appears to have been split into as many 

 species as Lentinus exilis. Its names include cervinus, nanus, 

 phlebophorus , and several new ones, depending chiefly on 

 stature, abnormalities, and weathered forms. One of these, 

 P. spilopus, has been rediscovered in England, but the des- 

 cription of the EngHsh form says that the pileus is radiately 

 rugulose, a character not found in the Ceylon specimens, and 

 omits the scabrous centre (recalling Armillaria mellea) which 

 is a constant feature of all forms of our species. It does not 

 grow on wood, as a rule, but in dense clusters near the base of 

 stumps on earth which is bound together by fine white my- 

 celium. Berkeley and Broome state throughout that it grows 

 on dead wood, but the figures show that it does not. 



The following illustration will show how prolonged is the 

 process of identification in many cases, and how " unscientific " 

 is the clue which sometimes leads to it. Early in 1906, I 

 gathered a white-spored agaric from an old stump in the 

 Gardens. It was distinguished from all previous species by 

 the viscid sub-diaphanous pileus, distinct from the solid fibrous 

 stalk, and the large spherical spores, but above all by the 

 peculiar characters of the gills. There seemed to be no divi- 

 sion of the Leucosporce into which it could be fitted without 



7(8)07 (4) 



