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about two lines across, presenting a dark olive-brown disc, or hymenium. The 
outer margin is furnished with long, rigid, black hairs, while below this fringe on 
the outer surface there is a coating of entangled, flexuous black hairs. If a small 
portion of the hymenial surface be placed under the microscope it will be seen to 
consist of asci, each containing eight rather small sporidia. Intermixed with 
these asci there will be seen a number of straight, pointed, brownish-black hairs, 
much longer than the asci, and giving the hymenium the appearance of being 
hairy. These hairs I regard as the paraphyses, notwithstanding the character 
given by Madame Libert ‘‘ without paraphyses,” for if their structure be atten- 
tively observed it will be seen that they* consist of a number of paraphyses united 
into bundles, branching off into bristle-like points, in the portion that rises above 
the asci, while the cells of this portion become carbonised. It is this peculiar 
form of paraphyses which justifies Madame Libert in placing the species in a 
new genus. 
Pericornia Phillipsii, B. and Leight, is the third species to which I would 
call your attention, but respecting which I have little to say. It was found by 
me growing on naked earth, in North Wales, in May last. A Thelocarpon, 
(Lichen) was growing in company with it. This fungus is so small that it is 
nearly undistinguishable to the naked eye, and belongs to the section Dermatiet, 
a very interesting order of plants, though very simple in structure. It consists 
of ashort stem composed of elongated, parallel cells, aglutinated together, which 
separate and spread out at the top into a spherical head, which bears a vast 
number of echinulate spherical spores—these are the organs of re-production. 
The life history of this plant, like the majority of fungi, is involved in obscurity, 
and awaits the patient and painstaking observation of the Mycological student, 
to bring it into the light. Let us hope that some member of this Club will direct 
his attention to these imperfectly understood growths, and confer a benefit on 
science by giving us their entire life-history. 
SOES™ 
