SHORT NOTES. 145 



SHORT NOTES. 



Two Insect Fungi. — When walking over Blackdown-on- 

 Mendip early in February I saw a brilliant orange club-shaped 

 fungus forcing its way through the heather. This turned out to 

 be Cordiceps militaris Fr., a parasite on the pupa of a moth. It 

 is met with in England at intervals, but has not been recorded 

 from N. Somerset since 1877, when Mr. Cedric Bucknall found it 

 in the conidia stage in the Leigh Woods, Bristol. In the first 

 week of April, when gathering violets in a thicket at Compton 

 Dando, near Pensford, I found another species, C. entomorrhiza, 

 springing from the dead larva of the common Ghost Sw^ift moth 

 {Hejnalus liqndinus L.). This fungus is much less conspicuous, 

 as the egg-shaped sporangium is very small and of a dull yellow 

 colour. It is a new record for the vice-county and appears to be 

 rare, although the larva has a wide distribution.^ — Ida M. Eopek. 



Carex rariflora. — In this Journal for 1913, p. 167, Messrs. 

 Marshall and Shoolbred say of Carex rariflora : " Locally plentiful 

 in spongy bogs near the Allt a'Chama Choire (2600 to 2800 feet). 

 The only other known Perthshire station is on Meall Odhar, close 

 to Clunlichan Glen and just within the same vice-county." - It may 

 be worth while putting on record that I gathered the species on 

 Ben Lawers in August, 1899. On the same excursion I also 

 gathered Juncus castaneus, which is, I believe, rare or unknown on 

 that mountain. — L. Gumming. 



Crocus vernus in Essex. — To the Garden for March 25th 

 Miss E. Willmott contributes an article on " The Crocus Fields at 

 Warley " (near Brentwood), which is accompanied by an illustra- 

 tion from a photograph showing masses of the plant in a " wood- 

 land " there. The Crocus is not mentioned in Gibson's Flora of 

 Essex, but Miss Willmott says it is known to have been growing 

 at Warley " for very many years : I have traced it as far back as 

 1620 or 1630, but I have not come across any record of its having 

 been planted." The fact that it had not previously been recorded 

 is doubtless because of its growth in private grounds, where it can 

 hardly be regarded as having any claim to nativity ; but its 

 occurrence was evidently well known locally, for Miss Willmott 

 writes tliat " an event of the year w^as a visit to Warley Place 

 when the Crocus was in flower : many a farmer would lend his 

 w^aggon for the day to convey a happy little party of mothers and 

 their children to see the purple fields." 



Battarrea phalloides in Britain (p. 105). — In addition to 

 the localities given for this fungus by Mr. J. Eamsbottom there 

 is another, viz. Wickham, near Croydon, in the late Dr. C. B. 

 Plowright's " List of Norfolk Fungi " (Norf. & Norw. Nat. Trans. 

 1872-73, p. 45). The figure which accompanies the list is said 

 to be depicted from one of the specimens found in 1872 by Cecil 

 H. S. Perceval, Esq., " outside and inside a decayed ash tree 

 in the grounds of the Earl of Bgmont at Epsom." — W. A. 

 Nicholson. 



