GROWING about HALIFAX. 97 



HELVELLA Jlipilata, Jlipite fylindrico albido, pileo venofo in- XCVI 



jlato. Elvella clavata. Scbceff. Fung. 149. Dickfon , . . 



Crypt, faf, 1. p. 19. 



BATTLEDOOR HELVELLA. 



tab. xcvn. 



HpHE root is an hard fibrous knob, of a blackifh brown 

 ■*■ colour, and a little thicker than the bottom of the ftem. 



The ftem while young is cylindrical, folid, foft, pliable, 

 and of a filvery white; as it advances in age becomes a little 

 wrinkled on the furface, twifted, and fometimes torn, efpecially 

 near the root. 



The pileus (if fuch it may be called) is in fhape like the 

 large end of a battledoor for ftriking a fhuttlecock, and the 

 ftem refembles the handle. It coniifts at firft of two equal 

 membranes, of a pale lemon colour, united at their fides, plain, 

 and united by their whole inner furface ; or, in other words, 

 it imitates a imall bladder, with the two fides prefled together. 

 As it advances in growth the two fides become wrinkled, and 

 branching veins begin to originate from that part of the ftem 

 which runs into the pileus ; at laft the fides feparate, and the 

 pileus becomes inflated or puffed up ; and when the bladder is 

 opened, nothing is found in it, except a few dawny capillary 

 filaments. 



This is the Helvetia Inflata, mentioned in my Introduction, 

 bat fince, finding that Sch^ffer has applied that name to a 

 very different ipecies, I have called it as above ; Schjeffer 

 has figured this plant on the plate above cited, but his figures 

 were taken from dried fpecimens. The figures in Michelis 

 and Vaillant's Works, which Sch^ffer has cited for his 

 plant, have no refemblance of mine. 



The fpecimens which lay on the table by me, while I made 

 this figure and delcription, on being touched, threw up their 

 feeds in form of a fmoke, which arofe with an elaftic force, 

 and glittered in the funfhine like particles of filver. 



Grows in the plantations about Fixby-Hall, in September 

 and October. 



