PEZIZA (DISCINA) MACROCALYX, Riess; A NEW 
BRITISH FUNGUS. 
By WonrHiNeTON G. Suita, Esq., F.L.S. 
(Puates XCVIII. and XCIX.) 
This fine Peziza was found by my friend Mr. J. Aubrey Clark, of 
Street, Somerset, in March of the present year. It grew in a Fir 
wood at Street in some plenty, and the specimens were half buried in 
the ground. I am indebted to Mr. C. E. Broome for the name and 
a reference to Fresenius’ ‘ Beiträge,’ p. 75, where it is described and 
indifferently figured in outline. The following particulars, freely trans- 
lated from the German, exactly accord with the Street plants 
“ This fungus is found underground in forests of Fir-trees singly, or 
from two to five together; in its progressive development it rises 
‘about one-half out of the ground. At first it is closed, but later it 
splits star-like from the top downwards to the middle of its cups, or 
sometimes even further down still, into from seven to ten more or less 
pointed strips. The exterior is a dirty pale blue, clothed with a thin 
white transient fur, and at the base of the cup is a short stem. In 
large-sized specimens the cup itself reaches a height of three inches, 
with a similar breadth, deeply cup-shaped with the rim at length bent 
outwards. Its substance consists of a soft, spongy tissue, composed 
of very large cells, elongated on the outside, and growing more and 
more globular towards the inner side, attaining a thickness of one line. 
The inside of the cup is covered by the hymenium of at first a pale, 
and later a dark violet, formed of tubular, truncated asci, each contain- 
ing eight elliptical sporidia one quarter of a millimetre long, and of 
branched, articulated paraphyses of the same length: each sporidium 
containing one or two drops of oil. This Peziza, to judge from the 
figure in Greville’s * Scottish Cryptogamie Flora,’ is closely related to 
P. vesiculosa, and might even be taken for a variety of that species 
were it not for several reasons against it. Besides its different place 
of growth, it differs especially in the colour of the hymenium, and the 
peculiar shape of the paraphyses.” 
It was originally my intention to have written a paper for the 
‘Journal of Botany’ on abnormal growth of Fungi, and their bearmg 
‘VOL, VII. [DECEMBER 1, 1869.] | 25 
