296 FUNGI. 



Scotland again, across the wild road leading from Loch 

 Lomond to Oban. The turf is short, and few flowers 

 vary its hue in September; but amid the verdant 

 I mnons of the grass rise thick black tongues, shaped like 

 simple clubs, and looking like imps turned to wood by 

 the light of day. This proved to be the Hairy Geoglos- 

 sum (G. hirsutum). At first sight I believed it to be a 

 clavaria, but the spores being contained in bags at once 

 distinguished it from that family. 



The next Geoo*lossum added to our collection was the 

 olive species (G. olivaceum, Plate XIX., Jig. 18). It 

 was growing on the moors above Oban, hard by the 

 Amethyst Clavaria. Then came a box of Geoglossum, 

 black as the impish hairy species, but as large as the 

 olive one, and all glossy with moisture. This was the 

 Shining Geoglossum (G. glabra, Plate XIX., Jig. 19). It 

 was sent to me by a sister botanist in Wiltshire, who had 

 found its black tongues looking strangely weird beneath 

 stately trees in a gentleman's grounds. I afterwards 

 found the species in woods in Herefordshire. 



We now come to a family unsurpassed for beauty and 

 charm among the fungus peoples, though having no claims 

 to utility. The Pezizae are cup-, or, in some instances, 

 saucer-shaped ; the hymenium spreads over the inside of 

 the cup. The spores are amazingly small and light ; and 

 if, when they are ripe, you irritate the surface of the cup 

 with a feather, the spore -bags burst, and the spores rise 

 like a puff of smoke. 



We were rambling in my favourite Yorkshire woods 

 one fine spring day, and recent rains had made the steep 

 path very slippery — nay, worse than slippery : the mud 



