8 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



. There was evidently a struggle to adapt themselves to their new hab- 

 itat. There were neither roots or dead wood for them to adhere to, 

 and I concluded that some s vere storm had separated them trom the 

 tree and placed them in their new position. 



The above plants comprise only a few out of the lari;e number I 

 collected in 1879. Many that appeared in profusion during the Sum- 

 mer and Autumn of 1878, were not with us in 1879. Perhaps the 

 most conspicuous amongst the missing for their singular beauty as well 

 as fur their offensive odor, were PhaUiis duplicatus, Bosc, and Phallus 

 ij/ipudicus, L. I found Phallus duplicatus, in the early part of June. 

 Three plants in three different periods of growth were close beside 

 each other in an open place in the woods. The first form of this 

 fungus is that of a puff ball, containing a tremulous mass i.f gelatine. 

 Within this is P. duplicatus, with its rudimentary pileus and stipe pre- 

 paring to burst through the volva. In the second period of growth it 

 escapes the volva sufficiently to show the pileus, together with a por- 

 tion of the stipe around which hangs a white reticulated frill looking 

 like a beautiful lace drapery ; pileus 6-7 inches across, campanulate, 

 lacunose and distinctly marked with variously formed reticulations; a 

 portion of gelatine clings to it, which, from the action of air and light 

 often turns amber color, giving a showy, transparent appearance. In 

 the fully developed plant the external surface of the pileus rapidly 

 passes into mucilage and drips away in deliquescent drops of a dark 

 olivaceous green, almost black. The perforated apex is firmly attach- 

 ed to the stalk and bordered with a delicate edge of white or cream 

 color. Beneath the pileus the stalk is duiical and c 'vered with a 

 reticulated drapery, which adheres for the space of one inch, when it 

 flows off and hangs down loosely like a white lace frill an inch or so 

 below the pileus. There is attached to the apex a lengthened drop of 

 gelatine, two inches long, which hangs within the cavity of the stalk 

 and seems to furnish its internal lining with mucilace. The pileus is 

 lined with a smooth white skin slightly viscid. The stalk is 10 inches 

 high, 1-2 inches thick, white, looking like carved ivory, hollow, with 

 a white, smooth, glossy, internal lining, externally covered with small 

 and variously shaped cavities which extend to the internal lining, but 

 do not penetrate it, forming a substance somewhat like the fine tissues 

 in bone, cutting hard and brittle ; exceedingly delicate at the base, 

 and but for the volva which remains upright with its mass of gelatine, 

 it would have nothing to support it. The volva is universal and com- 

 posed "f a strong, rough looking, tough skin, whose sole duty seems, 

 protection; within it, and extending to more than half its height, 

 there is a partition or dividing wall of tough, thick white skin, this 

 keeps the gelatine in place separating it from the stalk and holding it 

 fast between the two walls. 



Strange to say I drove six miles in a public conveyance with three 

 of these plants closely covered in a basket, without hearing a remark 

 upon the abominable odor. By the time I reached my place of de.s- 

 tination the smell had increased to such an extent that the flies near- 

 ly devoured me, in their eagerness tc) get at the fungus. Worse than 

 all there was an outcry through the house, one enquiring of the 



