272 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETT OK GLASGOW. 



XXXIV. 



NOTES ON THE OCCURRENCE OF HELOTIUM 

 MARCHANTI.E, BERK., IN A YRSHIRE. 



BY D. A. BOYD. 



[Read 29th March, 1892.] 



In March, 1890, I was so fortunate as to discover 

 several specimens of this Disconiycete on a moist 

 bank near the side of the Kilbride Burn, about half 

 a mile above the village of Seamill, where the stream 

 enters the sea. In the beginning of the present 

 month I again obtained a few sj)ecimens at the same 

 place, but afterwards found the fungus in mvich 

 greater abundance under the shade of some trees 

 about 300 yards further down the stream. In both 

 places it grew on the upper surface of faded spots 

 on the thallus of Conocephalus conicus (L.), one of 

 the Marchantiacese. 



This fungus was described by Berkeley,* under the 

 name of Peziza marchantice, from specimens dis- 

 covered on Asterella hemispherica {Marchantia hemi- 

 spherica, L.) at Whittlesea Mere, but no other English 

 locality appears to have since been recorded for it. 

 In Scotland it has only been recorded for Jedburgh, 

 where it was found on Conocephalus conicus, more 

 than thirty years ago, by the late Mr. Archibald 

 Jerdon. Outside of Britain its range of distribution 

 is apparently confined to Scandinavia and Finland. 



It is reported to grow on the fading thallus of the 

 liverworts named, but the Ayrshire specimens were 

 mostly confined to rounded or oval spots of a 

 yellowish-white colovir. As in many cases the faded 

 spots occurred on an otherwise healthy thallus, they 



•Smith's English Ilora, vol. v. (1837), p. 201. 



