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indicate the mode of growth and general structure of the family of 

 fungi which we are considering ; and in enumerating the species 

 that occur in our district we may follow the sequence adopted by 

 Mr. Berkeley in his " Outlines," with the addition of remarks on 

 any peculiarity that seems worthy of attention. 



Genus 53. Octaviania.* Vitt. 

 Peridium continuous or cracked, cottony, running down into tho 



sterile base ; trama byssoid, easily divisible ; cells at first 



empty ; spores rough. 



1. Octaviania asterosperma, Vitt. Tul., Fungi hypogoei, t. 11, 

 f. 1. Leigh Wood, Bristol. This species had occurred very 

 sparingly in England till the autumn of 1868, when it was found 

 in considerable numbers in a mixed plantation of fir and other trees 

 near Lyndhurst. It seemed to afford food to mice, as thirteen 

 specimens were heaped up together in a mn of those animals, and 

 they must have been carried there for a winter store, as they were 

 not attached to the soil. They now form part of the 13th Century 

 of Rabenhorst's Fungi Eiiropoei exsiccati. The odour of this species 

 is pungent but not unpleasant. Vittadini compares it to that of 

 sweet basil, or to a kind of cheese when new. 



2. 0. Stephensii, Tidasne I.e., t. xxi., fig. 6. Hydnangium 

 Stephensii, £., Ann. Nat. Hist., xiii., 352. Leigh Wood, 

 Bristol, and one other plantation on the same range of hills form, 

 the only British stations for this species. It is remarkable for 

 exuding when young a copious flow of a milky fluid, a character 

 which it shares with another Hypogee, Endogone lactiflua, B., biit 

 which has not been observed in any other plant of that Order. It 

 has hitherto occun-ed only under bushes of Lime, Tiha parvifolia. 



The above are the only British species. 



Genus 54. MELANOGASTER.t Cda. 

 Peridium adhering to creeping branched fibi'es which traverse its' 

 surface ; without any distinct base ; cells at first filled with pulp ; 

 spores smooth, mostly dark. 



* Octaviania, from Ottaviani, an Italian botanist. 

 t Melanogaster, melas, black, and gaster, a cavity. 



