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LIBRARY 



A List Of the Mycetozoa of Ceylon. ^^"^ ^^"^^ 



BOTANICAL 

 BY QARDEN. 



T. FETCH, B.Sc.,B.A. 



THE earliest collections of Ceylon fungi, made by Konig and 

 Gardner, consisted of the more obvious forms only, and 

 apparently did not include any Mycetozoa. On the other 

 hand, Thwaites devoted considerable attention to the collec- 

 tion of microscopic sj)ecies, and the number of Mycetozoa 

 enumerated by Berkeley and Broome in their " Fungi of 

 Ceylon" — seventy-four — forms rather a large percentage of 

 the 1,200 species of fungi recorded. Of these seventy -four, 

 seven do not belong to the Mycetozoa, and, judging from the 

 description, the same is true of another, Reticularia fuliginosa, 

 the type specimen of wliich appears to have been lost. Berkeley 

 and Broome were particularly unfortunate in their diagnoses 

 of Reticularia ; the specimens of four of the five species 

 recorded from Ceylon are still in existence, but only one of 

 these is a mycetozoon, and it is not a Reticularia. Out of the 

 remaining sixty -six species, twenty-six were described as new, 

 but twenty of the supposed novelties have since been proved 

 to be species previously described. Trichamphora pezizoidea, 

 Jungh., was re-described under two new names, and Dicty- 

 dicethalium plumbeum under three. Six of Berkeley and 

 Broome's new species, therefore, hold good ; and, moreover, 

 the collection contained two other new species, since described 

 from America, which Berkeley and Broome did not recognize 

 as such. 



The re-examination of the Ceylon specimens in the herbaria 

 at Kew, the British Museum, and Peradeniya has reduced the 

 sixty-six recorded species to fifty-two, in spite of the fact that 

 Berkeley and Broome included three speoies under the name 

 Stemonitis fusca and three under Arcyria punicea. Hemitrichia 



[Annals of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Vol. IV., Part VI.» Jan., 1910.] 



7(12)09 (41) 



