143 
On Fungi found in the neighbourhood of Buth. By C. EK. Broome, 
Esq., F.L.S. 
(Read March 14th, 1883.) 
The last notice of the Fungi of this district was read before the 
Bath Field Club in March, 1879, and it brought the subject to 
the end of Berkeley's 22nd Order, the Trichodermacei, and we 
have now arrived at the Fifth Family, the Ascomycetes, which 
has been generally regarded as a natural division of Fungi, and 
derives its name from the fruit being developed in little sacs or 
-asci. The investigations of recent botanists have however shown 
that other forms of fructification occur in the same species, so 
that the term Ascomycetes is not strictly correct; at least in 
several of the genera and species, those namely in which more 
- than one form of fruit has been discovered. The number of such 
species is still very limited, so that the present arrangement had 
_ better be continued provisionally ; otherwise a fresh distribution 
_ will have to be made again and again, as fresh forms of fruiting 
occur, which is very undesirable. 
_ Having hitherto followed Mr. Berkeley’s classification in his 
Outlines of British Fungology, I shall now quote what he says in 
_ his Cryptogamic Botany in connection with the present branch of 
our subject. 
_ To begin with the’ highest Order. The Elvellacei. Here the 
hymenium or fructifying surface is open from the beginning, or 
rarely closed ; the substance is fleshy, and waxy, or tremelloid, 
rarely subcoriaceous ; and, in form, cup-shaped or clavate. The 
grand characteristic of this group of Fungi is the fleshy or soft 
exture, and the more or less early and complete exposure of the 
surface of the hymenium. In the more perfect genera there is in 
no stage of growth any tendency to form a cup; but even these 
re so intimately allied with the more noble Pezize, that it is a 
er of some difficulty to distinguish certain states of Peziza 
macropus, for instance, and Helvella elastica. 
VOL. 5, No. 3. 
