50 fetch: revisions of 



dark purple-brown, gray, or brownish gray, covered with 

 radially -arranged adpressed silky fibrils ; cuticle extending 

 beyond the gills, margin shghtly fimbriate : flesh white, solid, 

 1 cm. or more thick over the inner edge of the gills, thinning 

 out regularly to the margin. 



Stalk 8-15 cm. long, 3-4 cm. in diameter at the base, narrow- 

 ing at first rapidly and then more gradually to the apex, 

 where it is 1-2 cm. in diameter, usually gray with adpressed 

 fibrils, sometimes white, solid. 



Volva up to 8 cm. high when expanded, and 6cm. in dia- 

 meter, erect, rigid, about 6 mm. thick at the base, 2 mm. thick 

 above, pale or dark brown below, rough and blackish brown 

 above, the surface spfit into irregular blackish patches of vary- 

 ing size and shape isolated by white or brownish lines, 2-3 mm. 

 broad : internal surface white, marked with distant yellow- 

 brown patches. A thick base 1-2 cm. high is common to 

 both stem and volva. 



Gills free, not crowded, white, then pink, up to 1'5 cm. 

 broad, nearly equal, lower edge almost straight, outer ends 

 rounded or truncate, inner ends rounded above and below, 

 leaving a wide space round the stem, margin entire or 

 crenate. 



Spores deep Indian red in mass, inchning to chocolate 

 where moistened by contact with the pileus, subglobose with 

 a terminal apiculus , 5-6 ^ , pale brown under a high magni- 

 fication. 



Among grass : often connate in clusters of three or four. 

 Said to be edible , and known to the Sinhalese as Puwakbada 

 Bimmal. 



This magnificent species was figured by Berkeley and 

 Broome in the " Transactions of the Linnean Society," 

 Vol. 27, PI. 34, but the colour of the pileus is not quite correct, 

 and the stem and interior of the volva are too dark. The 

 exterior of the volva as depicted in the figure is somewhat 

 imaginary, the brown, white-bordered areolae being separated 

 by dark wavy sutural lines. No such lines have been observed 

 in the numerous specimens gathered during the last two years, 

 and they are not marked on our figure of this species. The 

 original painting, however, was not returned to Peradeniya, 



