492 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
Diploderma glauca appears to have been responsible for some 
confusion requiring elucidation. The typical form of the genus, 
according to Cooke, is that figured by him as being this species in 
his Australian Handbook, namely, two peridia, a central sterile 
body, and intervening gleba, which disintegrates into a loose mass 
of spores and fibres. This species was described by Cooke in 
conjunction with Massee ; so, in order to be sure of my position, I 
submitted specimens to Mr. Massee for identification. The plant, 
which is very common in certain localities, possesses no central 
sterile body at all. The outer peridium is coarsely fibrous, the 
inner one thin, hard, and brittle, and the gleba on maturity is 
disintegrated, and consists of a floccosse mass of spores with 
shrivelled cells, and very few fibres, if any. The plant frequents 
places where there is a liability to disturbance. Upon denudation 
the inner peridium is washed out, and like a light ball is carried 
about on flood-waters. If the peridium is not now fractured, it 
subsequently bursts at the point subjected to greatest desiccation 
in a roughly stellate form. The plant does not seem to be sought 
after by animals. 
Mesophellia arenaria, on the contrary, appears to depend for 
dispersion on animal agency. It is much prized by lesser marsu- 
pials, who appear to smell its presence with accuracy. They 
unearth it, tear it open, eat the central core, and leave the 
dusty mass of spores and delicate fibres at the mercy of the 
winds. Judging from analogy, through Csycloderma we can only 
conclude the central body is an ultimate remnant of an ancestral 
stem. 
The underground Ascomycetes of Tasmania are few, and have 
little in common. Each appears a solitary form, whose relations 
are in distant parts. Hydnocystis cyclospora is identical with the 
plant described by Mr. McAlpine and myself in the Agricultural 
Gazette, New South Wales, February, 1896, as 7. convoluta. Mr. 
Massee subsequently writes: “Your MHydnocystis convoluta is 
absolutely identical with the type specimen of Berggrenia aurau- 
tiaca, var. cyclospora, Cooke. It is difficult to know why Cooke 
made a globose spored species a variety of an elliptical spored 
species. The two are distinct. Then, again, Cooke’s genus Berg- 
grenia is not distinct from Hydnocystis.” Hydnocystis is of 
interest to the student. It is barely, or not always, subterranean. 
Its free and continuous hymenium shows a close relationship to 
the Discomycetes. Stephensia varia, truly underground, but often 
exposed by denudation, has only one other relative in Australia, 
S. arenivaga, OC. et M., from Central Australia. It either is very 
variable in development, or there are at least three closely allied 
forms. The type is 3-4 c. m. diameter, with a cartilaginous peri- 
dium, a copious byssoid-pithy trama, and few rather large con- 
voluted tubes. But there is one form rather larger in habit, where 
