28 FETCH : REVISIONS OF 



equally common on the footpaths of tea estates all over the 

 Island. It is to be expected, therefore, that anyone who 

 collected Clavariae would include this species. Now Gardner 

 only gathered one Clavaria, C. miniata, which grew in sandy 

 soil, and the description of this does not agree with our foot- 

 path species. Thwaites collected thirteen species of Clavaria, 

 but he did not get Gardner's species ; seven of the thirteen 

 are said to be European species, and none of the descriptions 

 fits our present form. Yet it is quite incredible that C. miniata 

 should not be among these thirteen, if it is the species common 

 on the footpaths. C miniata is the required size and colour, 

 but it is said to be palmate and to grow on sandy soil, whereas 

 our species is practically filiform and grows only on compacted 

 clay. The only fiUform ground-living species in Thwaites' 

 collection is one of his earliest numbers (67) and has been split 

 up into two species, C. argillacea, Fr. , and C. inaequalis, Fr., 

 though it does not seem to be either, the original specimens 

 being apparently red and threadlike. The only way out of 

 the difficulty is to assume that Gardner's species is wrongly 

 described, and that Thwaites' specimens of the same were 

 attributed to European species. But it would have removed 

 all doubt if the collectors had labelled their specimens 

 " common on footpaths." 



Another example may be taken from the group which is 

 supposed to be always easily recognizable in dried specimens, 

 viz. , Fomes. We have a very common Fomes which particularly 

 favours Mangifera indica and Poinciana regia, and is so 

 (jommon amongst old clumps of bamboos that the Sinhalese 

 call this particular form of it the bamboo fungus, " Una Bim- 

 mal." It occurs in innumerable shapes, but it is generally 

 stalked, though the stalk may vary from a scarcely perceptible 

 one, ten centimetres in diameter and about two centimetres 

 high, to a thin elegant structure ten centimetres high and five 

 millimetres in diameter. The pileus may consist of an irregu- 

 lar mass of confluent lobes forming a sheet thirty centimetres 

 in diameter, or it may be a regular reniform or circular pileus 



