FUNGI. 249 



reason I could have for wanting " puddock stools " it was 

 utterly beyond his power to conceive. This species has 

 an inflated stem, often twisted and cracked ; the whole 

 plant is of a reddish brown in maturity, though, in an 

 earlier stage, the folds are of a pale tint. The Velvet- 

 stemmed Collybia is a very handsome fungus. We have 

 gathered it from the stumps of trees in autumn in 

 AY ilt shire, Kent, and Berkshire. The cap is a rich 

 burnt senna colour, the folds yellowish, and the stem 

 senna, shading to black, and covered with a velvet pile ; 

 it has rootlets at the base. An edible species — with 

 mouse coloured cap, and stem, and pale folds, which we 

 found in the Braid glen near Edinburgh — is the Nail 

 Mushroom, which Berkeley describes as an article of com- 

 merce in Austria (C. Esculentus). The Oak-leaf Agaric 

 (C. dryophilus, Plate XVII., Jig. 4), is a pretty species, 

 and often found among decaying oak and beech leaves 

 in the Kentish woods. The whole plant is of a buff colour. 

 In the Mycena group the margin of the cap is straight, 

 and pressed to the stem in infancy. The pretty rose 

 Agaric (M. Purus, Plate XVII., Jig. 5), is frequently 

 found in woods especially under larch and fir. I remem- 

 ber coming upon a perfect crowd of it in the plantations 

 at Starvegoose, near Hawkhurst. The folds are very 

 broad, the margin of the cap striped at the edge, and 

 coloured more deeply at the centre ; and the stem has 

 root-like hairs at the base. The whole plant is a beauti- 

 ful lilac colour. A minute and slender Agaric (M. al- 



calinus) familiar to all observers of nature, belongs to 

 this group. It appears in a night, raising its slender 



bells by dozens on decaying wood, while the tall stems that 



