CEYLO^^ FTJNGI. , 25 



that this was named Xylaria Gardneri by Berkeley on Gard- 

 ner's and Thwaites' specimens, while it has been named Xylaria 

 nigripes, Klotzsch ; X. piperiformis, Berk.; X. mutahilis, Currey ; 

 and X. flagelliformis , Currey, on specimens from other parts 

 of the Trollies. His Polyporus agariceus, Berk., is Favolus 

 agariceus Lev., and is almost certainly Polyporus arcularius 

 Fr. , or at least the Ceylon species which was given that name 

 by Berkeley and Broome in the " Fungi of Ceylon" ; it is also 

 the Favolus cillario, Mont, (probably an error for ciliaris) oi 

 Beccari's Ceylon collection. 



Alter Konig, nothing seems to have been done until Gardner's 

 arrival in 1843. J. G. Watson left a good drawing of Colus 

 Gardneri, gathered in 1835, but he does not seem to have 

 thought the other Peradeniya fungi worthy of record. Gardner 

 had previously collected fungi in Brazil, and would doubtless 

 have sent a large number of species home had he lived longer. 

 As it was, his time was fully occupied with phanerogamic 

 botany, and his consignments to Berkeley only include about 

 120 numbers. Some of the new species of these were described 

 in Hooker's Journal of Botany VI. (1847), while other descrip- 

 tions were included with those of Thwaites' collections. His 

 collection resembles that of Konig, in that it includes manj?- 

 polypori, but it also contains the larger agarics with a few 

 gasteromycetes and pyrenomycetes ; in short, he gathered the 

 most obvious fungi, and those which it is possible to identify 

 are the most conspicuous, common forms. Many of these 

 were assigned, quite erroneously, to European species, e.g., 

 that named Tricholoma nudum resembles T. nudum only in 

 colour, and is an Entoloma. There are however, many com- 

 mon forms which practically occur throughout the year at 

 Peradeniya, but which cannot be traced in Berkeley's descrip- 

 tions, e.^., there is apparently no description of our commonest 

 Lentinus among those of the eleven Letitini collected by 

 Gardner. It is possible, of course, that the conditions tlien 

 were different, but certainly no one collecting fungi at the 

 present day could miss this Lentinus. Judging from the rest 

 7(8)07 (3) 



