344 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



NOTE ON MARASMIUS CAUTICINALIS 

 (WITH.) FR. 



By the Very Rev. David Paul, LL.D., D.D. 



There would appear to be some question as to the ortho- 

 graphy of the specific name of this Fungus. Fries quotes it as 

 Withering's name, but apparently the plant was not known to 

 Withering, and the name does not occur in his Arrangement of 

 British Plants, 1796. Other authors — Quelet (Fl. Myc. p. 322) 

 and Bigeard and Guillemin (Champ, super, de France, 11, 152) — 

 follow Fries in this attribution of the name, seemingly without 

 investigation. Fries also quotes Sowerby, and cites his Plate 

 163, but Sowerby spells the word caulicinalis , not cauticinalis. 

 The same spelling is found in Swartz (Vet. Ak. Handl. 1808, 

 p. 82) and in Secretan (Myc. Suisse, 1833, n. 838) — both quoted 

 by Fries in connection with this Fungus. Fries himself (Syst. 

 AI^'c. 1821, I, p. 167, under Ag. campanella) began by spelling 

 the word caulicinalis. In his Mon. Hym. 11, 227 (1863), how- 

 ever, he writes Marasniius cauticinalis, and says, "This seems 

 to be the cauticinalis of Sow., and is certainly that of Swartz," 

 making no reference to the fact that both these authors spelled 

 the word differently. Finally, in his Hym. Eur. p. 476, he ad- 

 heres to the new spelling of the Monographia which is followed 

 by Quelet and the authors of the Flore des Champignons su- 

 perieurs de France. 



So much for the history of the word as applied to this Fungus. 

 How did the change in spelling come about? Some light may 

 be thrown on the subject by tracing the history of another 

 Fungus-name, that of Ag. cauticinalis Bull., given by Fries as 

 a synonym of Ag. [Coll.) stipitarius in Hym. Eur. p. 117. Origin- 

 ally, as in the other case, he spelled the word caulicinalis (Syst. 

 M^^c. I, 138; Mon. H}TTi. I, 158). This is also Bulliard's own 

 spelling (tab. 522, fig. i), followed by Sowerby (fig. 163), and 

 by Berkeley (Smith's Eng. Flora, v, 54). Quelet (Fl. Myc. p. 

 315) refuses to follow Fries' alteration, and describes the Fun- 

 gus as Marasniius caulicinalis Bull., and Secretan (Myc. Suisse, 

 n. 740, II, 176) adopts the same orthography. It is significant 

 too that Dr Robert Fries, son of Elias Fries, in his Synopsis 

 Hymenom3Tetum Regionis Gothoburgensis, 1888, instead of 

 adopting his father's name of Ag. {Coll.) stipitarius for this 



