FUNGI. 261 



is scarcely less common, it generally graced our fungus 

 basket on our Kentish excursions. 



Once only we found the Peppery Sap-ball (B. piperatus), 

 the pores are honeycombed and much larger than in the 

 other species, and of a pale yellow, while the cap is red 

 brown. Our specimen grew in the Bedgebury woods. 

 But the first Sap-ball which greeted our awakened 

 observation was a tenant of the woods about Sheerwater 

 in Wiltshire, and formed one of the first basket of fungi 

 we gathered. It was an evil-looking species, well earn- 

 ing its name of "Lurid." The cap was umber and 

 powdery, the tubes and swollen stem vermillion shading 

 to black. It is very poisonous (B. luridus, Plate X VIII., 

 Jig. 2). The Edible species (B. eclulis), we also found in 

 Wiltshire, but the specimens were bad. More recently 

 we have found it in abundance in Kent. Here the cap 

 is brown, the pores pale at first, and then olive, and the 

 plant grows to a large size. The Scaly Sap-ball (B. 

 scaber), is also a common inhabitant of fields and woods 

 in Kent, it also is brownish with yellowish pores, and a 

 very marked veil. 



In the Sap-ball group the pores were separable from 

 one another, in the succeeding, the Polyporus group, they 

 are not separable. The Scaly Polypore (P. squamosus, 

 (Plate XVIII, Jig. 4), is familiar to all observers, 

 growing like irregular brackets of great extent, and con- 

 siderable bulk, on ash and other trees. We found our 

 first specimen in the woods of Studley Eoyal, in Yorks, 

 and presently afterwards saw it growing from trees 

 in woods and hedge-rows in the more northerly districts 

 of the same county. Also we have seen it abundantly in 



