FUNGI. 295 



and by some plants of sheep's sorrel which leaned their 

 crimson leaves against the grooved columns. In this 

 group the head or receptacle hangs down over the steim 

 and the fruit-hearing surface is on the upper part. 



In the succeeding group of Verpa, the receptacle is bell- 

 shaped ; and rutted on the outer surface. We have not 

 found either of the species. 



The Mitrula group have oval receptacles. These are 

 scarce fungi, the only time we found either of them, was 

 when accompanying a shooting party on the Yorkshire 

 moors. There, where the oozy ground warned us to 

 beware of peat bogs, we espied among the spagnum and 

 marsh plants, the orange heads and white stems of the 

 Marsh Mitrula {Plate XIX., fig. 15). 



The Spathularia is distinguished from the Mitrula by 

 its long narrow head, flattened, and bright yellow in 

 colour. Once only I have found it, growing under fir 

 trees in the Fright wood near Hawkhurst (S. flavida, 

 Plate XIX., fig. 1 7). The same neighbourhood furnished 

 our specimens of the shining Leotia (L. lubrica, Plate 

 XIX., fig. 16). There is a lane which has yielded me 

 many a floral treasure, where the primroses grow in 

 galaxies, and the Lent lilies nod by hundreds in the 

 breeze, where the spotted orchis lifts its noblest spikes, 

 and the Lady fern grows in greatest variety of form : 

 there, on the hio*h banks of that sheltered lane, hard by 

 the roots of the now sleeping flowers, rose the pale stems 

 of the Shining Leotia, upon which the glossy heads of 

 bright olive, puffed and swelled to their utmost. 



The next group, that of Geoglossum, takes me back to 



