32 FETCH : REVISIONS OF 



Berkeley's descriptions, but our commonest form still defies 

 identification. It is, like all our common species, highly 

 variable ; the pileus varies from four to fifteen millimetres in 

 diameter, and the stalk from two to eight centimetres in length. 

 The stalk is almost black, shining, and strigose at the base, 

 often springing from a yellowish mycelium on the leaves or 

 twigs. In this all the specimens are alike , but the sulcate pileus 

 may be rough or smooth between the sulcse, corresponding 

 with the presence or absence of veins between the gills, and 

 the gills may or may not have a red brown edge. But Berke- 

 ley and Broome rely on size , and the presence of veins connect- 

 ing the gills, for the separation of their species, and neither is 

 valid in the present case. They never discovered that the 

 edge of the gills of any Ceylon species was coloured. Through- 

 out the whole of their Marasmii, one realizes that their limits 

 of allowable variation were too close, and in some cases they 

 use characters which are quite valueless. For instance, a 

 twisted stalk separates M. florideus from M. hemibaphus ; and 

 M. semipellucidus " differs from other species with which it 

 might be confounded in the upper part of the stem being pale 

 and pellucid." But all the stalks of our thin stalked species 

 twist hopelessly in drying, and there is not one of them in 

 which the upper part of the stalk is not at first pale and pellu- 

 cid. At present we can only be certain that young specimens 

 of our common species were named M. proletarius, B. & C, 

 though they are redbrown in the figure whereas to suit the 

 name they should be white ; that it is the part of Thwaites 807 

 which was attributed to M. hcematocephalus, Mont, and also 

 the part of the same number which was called M. fulviceps, 

 Berk. As Gardner collected the original specimens of fulviceps, 

 one is tempted to adopt the latter name, but this species is, 

 according to the description, not sulcate ! 



The four Marasmii in Thwaites 101 are hy pochroides , 

 coniatus, semipellucidus , and atroruhens. There is a figure of 

 the first only. All are about the same colour, with a sulcate, 

 campanulate pileus. Hy pochroides is distinguished by its 



