KEVISlOJSfS OF CEYLON FUNGI. 399 



when old ; centre livid brown, elsewhere ashy bro\vTi or 

 whitish, becoming darker with age ; striate almost to the 

 centre when old ; margin striate, finally recurved ; up to 7 

 cm. broad, and 4*5 cm. high ; flesh thin. 



Stalk, up to 16 cm. long, 4 to 12 mm. diameter, almost equal 

 or slightly attenuated upwards, white, longitudinally fibrillose, 

 sometimes squamulose, hollow, base generally not swollen. 

 Gills shghtly adnexed, narrow (3 mm.), attenuated outwards, 

 rather crowded, white, then purple-brown. Spores deep 

 purple-brown in mass when moist, dark-brown when magnified, 

 oval, slightly truncate at one extremity, rounded or pointed 

 at the other, 8-9 XO /jl. Deliquescent. 



There are three drawings of this species in Herb. Peradeniya. 

 One, which shows a small specimen, partly retaining the 

 floccose layer, was named Coprinus extinctorius by Berkeley 

 and Broome ; another, which shows two larger, connate, 

 glabrous specimens, was named Coprinus fuscescens ; the 

 third, which shows two, still larger, connate specimens, one of 

 which has a recurved margin, was labelled Coprinus macropus, 

 with the alternative name " Ag. {Psathrya) spadiceogriseus 

 Schaeff." The specimens which furnished the last two 

 drawings were not preserved ; there is a specimen of " C 

 extinctorius.^^ The thick cottony covering of the pileus 

 removes the possibihty of its being C. fuscescens, and it lacks 

 the rooting swollen base of C. extinctorius. 



41. — Coprinus microsporus B. & Br. 



Coprinus microsporus B. & Br., Fungi of Ceylon, No. 304, 

 Journ. Linn. Soc, XI., p. 560. 



Coprinus ruhecula B. & Br., Fungi of Ceylon, No. 308, 

 Journ. Linn. Soc, XL, p. 560. 



Coprinus ruhecula would be the more appropriate name for 

 this species, but microsporus has half a page priority. We 

 have paintings of both species, but the specimen of C. ruhecula 

 was not preserved. The figure of ruhecula shows more red- 

 brown scales than that of microsporus, but the latter appears 

 to have been " weathered." 



Pileus ovate, then campanulate, obtuse, densely covered 

 when young with red-brown floccose scales, which are distant 



