NATURE NOTES. 281 
ago, and it still holds its place on the stump. This fungus 
is common on old oak trees in England, and is here and 
there found on oaks in Scotland, but it does not appear to 
have occurred before in this country on any other kind of 
tree. Elsewhere, however, according to De Seynes in his 
monograph on Fistulina, it has been found on the Chestnut, 
Beech, Willow, Hornbeam, Alder, Ash, Walnut, and Hazel, 
as well as on the Oak. Berkeley, in English Flora, v., part 
ii. p. 155, notes that it grows “on Oak, Ash, Beech, and 
Chestnut,” but in his Outlines of British Fungology he merely 
says, “on trunks of old oaks,” perhaps referring to this 
country alone ; and Dr M. C. Cooke repeats this. Fries, in his 
Hymenomycetes Europxi, gives the habitat of the fungus as 
“ad truncos Quercus.” Greville, in his Scottish Cryptogumic 
Flora, states that it is called in Tuscany “ Lingua di Cast- 
agno,” from which it would appear that the fungus is 
common on chestnut trees there; and Krombholz mentions 
that it is found on chestnuts as well as on oaks in Bohemia. 
Arrhenius (Nordens Mabsvampar, p. 127) says that in 
Scandinavia it occurs sometimes on the chestnut tree. It 
would appear then that this fungus, though it has been 
found on several kinds of trees, prefers the oak, and, after 
the oak, the chestnut, and that in this country it is ex- 
tremely rare except on the oak. It is interesting to find it 
not only growing at all within the city of Edinburgh, but 
occurring on a chestnut there. 
Melanogaster ambiguus, Tul.—A specimen of this fungus, 
one of the Hypogxi, was found in July 1900 by Mr A. 
Murray, in the grounds of the Royal Blind Asylum, West 
Craigmillar. This is a rare fungus in Scotland, though the 
fact of its being subterranean may account for its being so 
seldom found. It is distinguished by a peculiarly dis- 
agreeable smell. 
Tricholoma monstrosum, Sow.—This occurs in large 
quantities in the Newington Cemetery on a plot of grass 
which has not been used for interments. It grows densely 
cespitose, and takes many strange forms. It corresponds 
exactly with Sowerby’s figure, and is not a common fungus. 
Davin Pau, LL.D. 
