79 



The Fungus Show at SouTn Kensinoton tliis year was fully 

 equal to, if not in some respects superior, to its predecessors. The 

 great fault was a want of arrangement, of classification, and even 

 of names. Still there was a goodly show of interesting species, 

 and some that were new. Amongst the latter we observed, for the 

 first time, an English specimen of Rhizina Icetiigata, Fries, ex- 

 hibited by Miss Louisa Hubbard, of Horsham. There were also 

 numerous species of Hydnum, and some very fine Polyporei. An 

 excellent specimen of Clavaria botrytis arrived late, together with 

 fresh specimens of Rhizina undulata, Fries. A full account of the 

 meeting appeared in the " Gardener's Chronicle." 



Relation of Funoi to other Plants. — Their most common 

 colouring matters exactly correspond with those found in the apo- 

 thecia of lichens, and their more accidental constituents are also 

 quite analogous to those occasionally found in the apothecia of 

 particular lichens — for example in those of Cladonia comucopioides. 

 According to the principles adopted in this paper, fungi ought then 

 to be looked upon not as fronds, but as the fructification of a low 

 type of plants, and I think that the fact of the colouring matters 

 alone leading to such a satisfactory conclusion shows that they 

 must have some important physiological signification. * * * * 

 Looking upon fungi from this chromatological point of view, 

 they bear something like the same relation to lichens that the petals 

 of a leafless parasitic plant would bear to the foliage of one of 

 normal character — that is to say, they are, as it were, the coloured 

 organs of reproduction of parasitic plants of a type closely ap- 

 proaching that of lichens, which of course is in very close, if not 

 in absolute agreement, with the conclusions drawn by botanists 

 from entirely different data. — H. C. Sorby, in Proc. Roy. Soc. 



NOTE ON SOLORINA BISPORA (Nyl.). 



By the Rev. J. M. Crombie, F.L.S. 



In recording the occurrence of this lichen on Ben Lawers, as 

 mentioned in last number of Grevillea, Dr. Stirton is mistaken in 

 supposing that it has not been gathered elsewhere than on the 

 Pyrenees. A reference to Continental Lichenology would have 

 informed him that since the date of " Ny lander's Synopsis" it had 

 been found in the Tyrol by Dr. Arnold, and in North Italy by 

 Professor Anzi. What, however, is of more consequence, is the 

 specific value of the plant so named provisionally as a separate 

 species. Dr. Nylander (Syn. p. 331), in speaking of it, says — 

 " Forsitan tantum varietas saccatce (limbatce maxime propinqua) ; 



