136 



ON CORTICIUM AMORPHUM. Fries. 

 By the Editor. 



In tlie year 1801, Persoon published in his " Synopsis" (p. 657), 

 the description of a fungus which he names Peziza amorpha, and 

 remarks that it is subcoriaceous, peculiar, and allied to Thelephora. 

 Subsequently, Mougeot and Nestler published specimens, under No. 

 398 of their " Exsiccati." In 1815 De Candolle included it, still 

 under the name oi Peziza amorpha, in "Flore Frangaise," Vol. v., 

 p. 23, and in 1822, Persoon included it in his " Mycologia Eu- 

 ropeea," Vol. i., p. 269, under the same name, giving as its habitat 

 the bark of Abies, which was omitted in the " Synopsis." 



Fries, in his " Elenchus Fungorum," which was published in 

 1828, transfers this fungus to his genus Thelephora (p. 183), under 

 the name of Thelephora amorpha. In his " Epicrisis," in 1838, it 

 is removed to Corticium, as Corticium amorphwn, which name it for 

 a long time retained. In the new edition of the " Epicrisis'" pub- 

 lished in 1874, whilst still retaining it as Corticium (?) umorp)hvm 

 (p. 648), Fries questions whether Persoon might not have had two 

 distinct fungi in view in his Peziza amorpha, one of which was re- 

 ferable to Corticium, bnt the genus is queried, as if Fries himself 

 began to doubt the propriety of retaining it amongst the Hymeno- 

 mycetes. It would appear that Fuckel, in his *-' Symbolje Myco- 

 logicfe'' (p. 28), published in 1869, remarked that the basidia were 

 asciform, filled with large ovate corpuscles, and Fries, in citing this 

 authority, seems to indicate the source of his doubts. 



In 1872, Mr. C. H. Peck described in tlie 24th Report of the 

 State Museum of New York (p. 96), a new genus under the name 

 of Nodularia, for the reception of a fungus found by him on the 

 bark of Abies balsamea, and which he considered intermediate 

 between Peziza and Patellaiia, although his reasons for not includ- 

 ing the species in Patellaria, on account of the absence of para- 

 physes in the latter genus, was evidently a slip of the pen, since 

 paraphyses are usually highly developed in Patellaria. From the 

 description and figure of Nodularia balsamicola, it was impossible 

 to determine the nature of the American species with certainty, but 

 having been favoured by Mr. Peck with specimens, it became at 

 once evident that he had met with the Peziza amorjjha of Persoon, 

 of which his Nodularia balsamicola is a synonym. 



In 1874, Dr. Rabenhorst published specimens in his " Fungi 

 Europ^i," No. 1824, under a new generic name, that of Aleuro- 

 discns, with figures of the fruit from three localities — from Switzer- 

 land, the Carpathians, and Germany, intimating its connection with 

 Discomycetes. He there cites Peziza Willkommii, Hartig., as 

 another synonym of this remarkable plant, which appears in " Hed- 

 wigia" for 1874, page 184, as Alenrodiscus amorphus. We may 

 remark that previous to this, the Rev. M. J. Berkeley had called 

 our attention to the Pezizoid character of this fungus, and vre 

 examined specimens from him with distinct asci and paraphyses. 



