360 ON THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF AGARICUS. 
Knapp's especially being highly curious, for there the parasites are 
larger than the hosts themselves. 
A. Loveianut must always possess great interest, for it is a good- 
sized species, attaining a diameter of three inches and a similar height, 
belonging to the subgenus Volvaria (and of course with pink spores), 
found springing from a volva on the top of another Agaric, belonging 
to the subgenus CUtocybe (with white spores). 
The host {A. nebularis) is rare about London, and appears to be 
local elsewhere ; but I have found it in abundance in several places, 
notably in the woods about Oxford, and in old fir- plantations. It 
takes its name from its singular cinereous clouded pileus, which is 
generally slate-coloured, deep grey or brown, clouded with white. This 
white tint is sometimes a mere bloom, at other times (and, gene- 
rally, in old and distorted specimens) it acquires the character of a 
thick floccose web, attaining a thickness of a sixteenth of an inch. 
Last autumn the thought struck me that this white substance so 
common on A. nebularis might be nothing less than a mere state ot 
the mycelium of A. Loveianus itself, and only requiring certain condi- 
tions to enable it to d.welope into the perfect plant. At the beginning 
of October, my friend Miss Lott, of Barton Hall, South Devon, sent 
me a batch of Fungi found growing amongst rotten fir-leaves. 
Amongst the fungi were many specimens of A. nebularis, bearing 
the accustomed white stains or smears. After gathering all the 
rotten fir-leaves, and thoroughly saturating them with ram-water, 
half-buried the plants of A. nebularis amongst them, and placed all 
together under a bell-glass in a warm room. The white substance 
then soon showed its true character, and ran over the whole mass, 
making no distinction of either pileus, stipes, or gills ; small white 
nodosities soon began to appear, and after a fortnight I had the plea- 
sure of seeing the fully-developed A. Loveianus. My specimens were 
small, the volvas very large, and pale sienna in colour ; in other respec s 
Mr. Berkeley's description in the < British Flora ' is so perfect that it 
is not necessary to describe the species anew. Not the least snign a 
part of the case is, that though I have repeatedly written to Miss Lott 
regarding this Agaric, with request for a sharp look-out for it, nothing 
has ever been seen of it in the fir plantations of Barton Hall. 
An end was put to my experiment by a sudden onslaught of a thin 
(this time microscopic) parasite, viz. Peniri Ilium crustnrcum, *>•> 
