162 FETCH : 



the volva into separate compartments. In the unexpanded 

 state the bars are thin, and the meshes polygonal : but in the 

 painting of Thwaites's specimen the bars are very broad and 

 the meshes are rounded. 



Genus 5. Glathrella, Ed. Fischer. 



Receptaculum netted, with or without a short stalk ; 

 branches of the net consisting of a single chamber : gleba 

 when ripe adhering in separate masses to the junctions of the 

 branches only. 



Glathrella delicata (B. & Br.). 



This species was described by Berkeley and Broome under 

 the name Clathrus delicatus from specimens sent from Ceylon 

 by Thwaites (Journ. Linn. Soc, XIV. (1875), p. 77). Their 

 description runs, " Clathrus delicatus, B. & Br. Minuta : 

 reticulo parco delicato : sporis in glomerulos hie illic sitis 

 (No. 784 cum icone). On rotten coconut trunks, &c. Pera- 

 deniya, November, 1868. Whole plant scarcely ^ inch high ; 

 volva brown : network pale : hymenium confined to certain 

 points, so that the spores appear to be collected into little 

 scattered heaps." The figure is not in the collection now, 

 and the single specimen is in very bad condition. Fischer 

 (Engler-Prantl, die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien, pt. 181, 

 p. 248) suggests that the species probably belongs to the genus 

 Ileodictyon, Tulasne, but in Untersuch. Phall., 1900, he says 

 that in the arrangement of the gleba and the short stalk it is 

 nearer Clathrella. He examined the specimens at Kew and 

 the British Museum. Saccardo says of it, " non satis nota 

 species : minuta, vix. 1| cjn. alta : receptaculo parce et 

 dehcate cancellato, palhdo." 



I have recently found it on five occasions at Peradeniya, 

 growing under dense shade on sticks, rotten palm fronds, and 

 fragments of bamboo culms, and though the number of occur- 

 rences is not large, it usually occurs in such abundance that 

 more material is available than in the case of any other Ceylon 

 phalloid except Dictyophora. More than fifty have been found 

 in course of development on a piece of bamboo culm, 25 X 

 10 cms. In the open it is generally damaged by insects, &c., 



