FUNGI. 273 



Tasmania under that designation is the Mylitta 

 anstralis, a kind of Tuber, or rather, resembling a 

 Tuber, attaining to the size of a child's head, and 

 with a taste somewhat like boiled rice. Mr. Back- 

 house says, " I have often asked the aborigines how 

 they found the Native Bread, and have universally 

 received the answer 'a rotten tree.'" It resembles a 

 truffle in its more or less globose or irregularly 

 globose form, in its dark colour externally, and in its 

 growing beneath the surface of the ground. Some 

 personshavesuspected, or asserted, that it is produced 

 from the roots of some tree. When dried it becomes 

 almost as hard as a stone, so as not to be cut with a 

 knife ; but it may be sawn across, and is found to be 

 yellowish white within, and somewhat mottled. No 

 investigation with the microscope has been successful 

 in the discovery of any kind of fruit, so that really it 

 resembles, more than anything else, those compact 

 masses of fungus mycelium, known by the general 

 name of Sclerotium. Many of these species of 

 Sclerotia have been induced, under favourable con- 

 ditions, to develop perfect fungi of various genera 

 from their substance, and recently it has been dis- 

 covered that a new and true species of Polyporus, 

 named Polyporus MylittcB, is developed, as a final 

 stage, from the Mylitta, or " native bread." In Queens- 

 land Lentinus cyatlnts has been found growing upon a 

 sclerotium similar in character and almost as large. 

 A common Sclerotium in mushroom beds produces a 

 club-shaped Xylaria, and some small species are the 

 basis of forms of Pesiza} 



' See also Linnean Transactions, vol. xxiii, p. 93. 



T 



