Journal of Froceediwjs, Ixiii 



extremely abundant and very ditHcult to determine ; some are very tender, 

 some very tough ; some fleshy, others ahnost woody ; some with an 

 inseparable cuticle, others with a separable one ; some white and some 

 red under the cuticle ; some mild and innocent, some so intolerably 

 pungent that if placed on the tongue, the skin of that delicate organ will 

 speedily peel ofl' with a blister, and (like Ruysida emetica) show red 

 underneath ! The lovely but untouchably glutinous Arjaricm mucidus^ 

 generally so frequent on the High Beach beeches, was this year nowhere 

 to be seen. The Falstaffean Doletns eduUs was common, as well as B. 

 ehr]iHenteron and P>. sitbtomentosus. The milk mushrooms, Lactarii, were 

 abundant ; the poisonous, livid, Lactarius Uvidii.i, was everywhere ; L. 

 quietus, so mild that none need fear his quietus from consuming it, was 

 also very common ; " odour oily — like bugs," writes Mr. Berkeley ; other 

 authorities say the odour is " mealy, like recent farina." Perhaps the 

 " mealy-bug " was in view, but this is not stated ! Boletus scaher, grey, 

 ugly, sticky, and vile.to the sight, albeit an edible species, was to be noted 

 almost everywhere ; and B. luridus was frequent, rapidly changing to 

 blue when cut or broken — a pretty toy for the ladies, quickly poisonous to 

 some people, but a delicious viand to the indurated hippogastrous fungo- 

 phagist. We must not, however, weary our readers by attempting a 

 catalogue of all the species met with ; a list of the forest Hymenomycetes 

 as far as at present ascertained, is given in this part of the ' Transactions ' ; 

 most of them are common in the woods every autumn, and many were 

 recorded in the account of last year's fungological ramble [Proceedings, 

 i. xlviii.] 



Many of the visitors were struck with the beauty and luxuriance of the 

 golden Peziza aurantia, growing in large patches in and about the road 

 ruts and newly-cut water-courses, particularly in Fairmead Bottom and 

 near Golding's Hill. 



But one remarkable fungus certainly demands a special paragraph in 

 our records, viz., Coprinus aratus. This is probably a rarity, and has not 

 been seen by the writer for the last twenty years. Mr. Berkeley first 

 found it " in a hollow tree." It was one of the first Fungi to attract our 

 notice when commencing the observation of the Cryptogamia, growing 

 twenty years ago at the bottom of a dung-heap in Nottinghamshire. 

 Coprinus aratus is one of the larger, deliquescent, fugitive species ; it 

 grows to be six inches high, stem tapering upwards, very hollow and 

 fragile, a top from three to five inches across, tender, and breaking to 

 pieces with a touch. It lives less than a day, and in decay it curls up 

 into beautiful volutes, and distils itself away into drops of black and 

 tumid ink. Dr. Wharton had the pleasure of discovering the specimen 

 in Monk Wood, which was, alas ! but a rum, suffering from a dread and 

 fatal mycoclysm ; however, the remnants were brought carefully home 

 for the microscopic examination of the cystldia. As these organs (con- 

 cerning the exact nature of which much difference of opinion prevails, 

 although Dr. Cooke states that the evidence seems to be in favour of the 



