370 
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON PHYLLACTIDIUM. 
Bv Dr. J. E. Gray, FRS, V.P.Z.S., ELS. 
Mr. Carruthers has just shown to me that Mr. J. Ralfs described 
Phyllactidium, in a paper read before the Botanical Society of Edin- 
burgh, December 12, 1844, and January 9, 1845, and printed in the 
‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ vol. xvi. p. 308. t. 10, for 
1845; and also in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edin- 
burgh, vol. i.p. 186. He there described and figured this genus with 
its fructification under the name of Coleochete scutata, Brebisson, 
and he gives several habitats for the species. He says that he sent 
some dried specimens to Kuetzing, who considered that it was the same 
as his Phyllactidium pulchellum; but Mr. Ralfs thinks that Kuctzing 
only described the young state of C. scutata under that name, for the 
figure well represents the plant he described before the appearance of 
the bristles. 
'This account puts an end to the idea of the plant having been 
discovered as British by Mr. Lawson, or by my correspondent. Mr. 
Ralfs received some specimens from the locality from whence my speci- 
men was sent. 
Mr. Aylward most kindly sent me some water and mud from the 
nd whence he derived his specimens. I placed them in two 
small bottles, and, in the course of this summer, many specimens 
gradually developed themselves on the inner surface of the bottle, and 
most of them have developed fruit, as figured by both Ralfs and 
Suringar. In one bottle made of white glass and of a ventricose form, 
the specimens are developed pretty equally over the whole surface of 
the bottle. In the other, which is a tall bottle, of pale green glass, 
the plants have only developed themselves in a confused cluster just 
below the edge of the water, on the side furthest from the light, and 
these plants are’ much the largest, but the centre of each plant has 
died rotted away, leaving only a large ring of several series of 
. I have observed no such disorganization in the smaller speci- 
mens in the white ventricose bottle. 
If this plant is the Bulbochete of Brebisson, it is his variety scutata, 
and that variety is, I expect, a permanent species, for I could not dis- 
cover any specimens, or any state of the growth of the many specimens I 
