VOLVARIA LOVEIANA 445 



In 1867 W. G. Smith ^ published a brief communication on 

 Volvaria Loveiaria in which he stated that he had successfully 

 cultivated this parasite on its host-plant. He says : Clitocyhe 

 nebularis " takes its name from its singular cinereous clouded 

 pileus, which is generally slate-coloured, deep grey, or brown, 

 clouded with white. This white tint is sometimes a mere bloom, at 

 other times (and generally in old and distorted specimens) it acquires 

 the character of a thick fioccose web, attaining a thickness of a 

 sixteenth of an inch. 



" Last summei the thought struck me that the white substance 

 so common on Agaricus nebularis might be nothing less than a mere 

 state of the mycelium of Agaricus Loveianus itself, and only requiring 

 certain conditions to enable it to develop into the perfect plant 

 . . . sent me a batch of Fungi found growing among rotten fir 

 •leaves. . . . After gathering all the rotten fir-leaves, and strongly 

 saturating them with rain-water, I half-buried the plants of 

 A. nebularis among them, and placed all together under a bell-glass 

 in a warm room. The white substance then soon showed its true 

 character, and ran over the whole mass, making no distinction of 

 either pileus, stipe, or gills ; small white nodosities soon began to 

 appear, and after a fortnight I had the pleasure of seeing the full}^- 

 developed A. Loveianus. My specimens were small, the volvas very 

 large, and pale sienna in colour. . . . Not the least singular part of 

 the case is, that though I had repeatedly written . . . regarding 

 this agaric, with request for a sharp look out for it, nothing has ever 

 been seen of it in the fir plantations." 



Mr. J. Ramsbottom,^ who read Smith's paper about twelve 

 years ago, has informed me that, after examining numerous pilei 

 of Clitocybe nebularis, he has never been able to find any evidence 

 that the cloudiness is due to a foreign mycelium, and that he has 

 several times attempted to repeat Smith's experiment, but never 

 with any success. 



Doubtless the pileus of Clitocybe nebularis exhibits two kinds of 

 cloudiness : (1) a normal one, due to its own hyphae, — a mere 



^ W. G. Smith, " On the Artificial Production of Agarictis (Volvaria) Loveianus 

 Berk.," Journ. of Bat., vol. v, 1867, pp. 365-367. 

 2 In litt. 



