461 



logy, to iiKikc more extensive ohseivatioiis with a view of ascertaining tlic fact. — Rich' 

 ard Spruce, F.B.S.E.; York, November 10, 1842.* 



244. Information on Byssus barbata, Eng. Bot. Your correspondent Mr. Lees re- 

 quests information respecting Ozoniura auricomum (Pliytol. 428), tbe Byssus barbata 

 of Withering and early English authors. This production was first denominated Ozo- 

 nium auricomum by Link in ' Berlin Magazin,' and this generic title was confirmed 

 by Persoon in the ' Mycologia Europaa.' It is not introduced in the second part of 

 vol. V. of English Flora,' because Fries, Berkeley, and all the best mycologists of the 

 present day, consider it best to exclude this and other doubtful productions from the 

 catalogue of Fungi. The fructification of Ozoniura is quite unknown, and this singu- 

 lar plant is believed to be an abnormal and barren state of some other Fungus, proba- 

 bly a Thelephora. I have sometimes fancied it bore some resemblance to Tlielephora 

 hirsula, but this plant only grows on rotten wood and stumps of trees, whilst Ozoniura 

 auricomum is occasionally found on damp walls. The figure in Withering of its sup- 

 posed fructification represents nothing possible. Although I fully concur in the pro- 

 priety of excluding this plant, with the Rhizomorpha; and sirailar puzzling articles, 

 frora the body of mycological works, they are too interesting to be passed over without 

 notice, and raight, I think, be described in an Appendix, especially as most young fun- 

 gists are disappointed by finding no mention made of them. Mr. Lees will find an 

 admirable figure of Ozoniura auricorauni in Greville's 'Scottish Cryptogamic Flora,' 

 iv. tab. 260 ; the description by Dr. G. contains all that is known concerning its struc- 

 ture, with the synonymy from the time of Dillenius upwards. — H. O. Stephens ; 78, 

 Old Market-street, Bristol, December 2, 1842. 



24b. On the narrow-leaved Hypericum perforatum. The narrow-leaved variety of 

 Hypericum perforatum noticed in 'The Phytologist' for this month, (Phytol. 427), 

 has been long known to me as a native of this island, where it is far from uncommon 

 in similar situations with the ordinary form of the species, into which it passes by in- 

 sensible gradations. Indeed the broad-leaved and normal state of H. perforatum is 

 decidedly uncommon with us, though such a plant does occasionally occur, and makes 

 a certain approach to H. dubium of Smith, in having but few pellucid dots upon the 

 leaves, and one or more of the sepals is elliptical, oblong and obtuse, while the re- 

 mainder preserve their usual acuteness of termination, I have never gathered the 

 real dubium in fiovver, but I possess dried specimens in that state from others, and I 

 found at Mucruss in October last what I take to be the genuine plant of ' English 

 Botany ' cS^c, but quite out of bloom, having all the sepals elliptical-oblong, rounded 

 at the tip, and somewhat recurved ; in habit the Irish plant was more like H. quad- 

 rangulum than H. perforatum, so sirailar indeed that I did not readily distinguish the 

 two as they grew together, until more closely examined. My kind and liberal friend. 

 Dr. Wood of i\Ian(.lic^«pr, has pointed out to rae since then the strongly raarked pel- 

 lucid reticulations of the leaves in H. dubium, when viewed by transmitted light, as 

 affording an excellent character, in addition to those previously laid down for distin- 



* Since writing the above, I have received a communication from Dr. Taylor (in 

 answer to a letter enclosing Hypnum filicinura with folia aecessoria), wherein he ob- 

 serves — " the name filicinum seems to have been applied almost prophetically to this 

 species, which alone possesses these cauline scales that remind one of the ferns ; they 

 probably perform the same functions as the leaves, and yet they appear to be univer- 

 sally without nerves." — R. S. 



