1a -CRYPTOGAMIA. ALGAE. Byssus. (1) Thread-like. 
Threads like cotton, finer than those of a cobweb, grey 
white, not viscid; burns like touchwood. Linn. So tender and 
light that the breath will disperse it, pure white, like very fine 
wool, threads not branched; when handled seems to dissolve 
into water from the moisture affixed to it. Though so very 
tender it remains long in its-native situation. Dini. It grows 
most iuxuriantly on bins and wooden shelves in cellars where 
wine has been spilt, hanging down in form of a jelly bag, or of 
a cylinder with a globe at the end, to the length of a foot or 
more. It is easily crushed, and then seems principally to con- 
" sist of water, adhering to the fingers. ies 
Damp cellars and vaults. P, May—Dee. 
, It dissolves and destroys the hardest wood. Linn. 
Var, 2. Fibres short, matted. 
Dill. 1. 12. 
Pale yellowish or reddish, changing to glaucous green, then 
red brown and at length blackish, in colour, substance and soft- 
ness somewhat resembling the skin of a mouse. At first it is 
flat, but one layer growing upon another, it is gradually raised. — 
‘ _It consists of fibres, too fine to be observed by the naked eye, — 
- at first upright, afterwards matted together. It generally grows 
in a circular form. Dini. Fibres either simple or branched ; 
the branches few, short, generally standing at right angles, either ~ 
opposite or Ek eagle 
On wine casks, — 
crypta’rum B. Hair-like; perennial ; ash-coloured, tough. 
Dill, a 905 
Threads = an inch long, thick asa hair, dirty white, brittle, 
not branched, crowded, diverging from a centre. Dit. ‘ 
On the sides of cayerns in limestone rocks, and on plaistered 
wallsin vaults. —Ss- ’ ~ _P. Jan.—Dec. 
FUNGI. 
MERU'’LIUS. Pixevs with Gills or veins under- 
neath, of the same substance with the rest 
of the plant. 
(1) With a stem, and Gills or atk: 
umbellif’- M. Gills white, broad at the base, few, 2 or 4 in a Set: 
crus. = _—_, pileus white, convex, a little bossed, elegantly plait- 
ay Bet es. ed at the sides ; stem white, slender. _ EE 
= Mich. 80. 11-Bull. 519. 1. A-Bolt. 39, A-Mich. 74-7> 
Buxb. 4, 31.3. 
