ANTHURUS ASEROEFORMIS. 



We are very much pleased to be able to present, through the 

 kindness of Professor D. McAlpine, Melbourne, Australia, the first 

 photograph that has been published of this rare Australian species. 

 We append herewith Professor McAlpine's description of the fresh 

 specimens, which, taken in connection with the photograph, gives 

 us a perfect idea of the plant. It is one of the rare phalloids of Aus- 

 tralia, but one that can not fail to be recognized by any of our Aus- 

 tralian friends who may meet it if they will simply bear in mind 

 that the photograph well represents the plant and that when fresh 

 it is red. The plant is extremely fragile when fresh, and in the 

 photograph one of the arms has been broken off. However, it is 

 probable that the plant varies as to the number of arms. 



History. This plant is called AnthurusMtillerianus, form aseroeformis. by 

 Professor Fischer in his Untersuchuugen, 1890, and he gives a good illustra- 

 tion of it on Plate 6. He referred it, I think with considerable question, as a 

 form of Anthurus Miillerianus, figured by Kalchbrenner. I suspect if the 

 truth were known it would turn out to be the original of Kalchbrenner's 

 species. Kalchbrenner shows quite a different plant, having eight arms and 

 a distinct cup at the base, cfr. fig. 14 of our pamphlet, The Phalloids of 

 Australasia. But Kalchbrenner got his original idea from a dried specimen. 

 He was a good artist, in that he drew figures to represent his ideas rather than 

 the specimens. If you will compare Kalchbrenner's figure with the photo- 

 graph from Professor McAlpine, you can readily understand how Kalch- 

 brenner may have gotten an erroneous idea of the plant from a dried speci- 

 men. Kalchbrenner called the plant Anthurus Miillerianus and I presume the 

 "I saw it first" school would say that should be the name of the plant without 

 regard to how big a blunder Kalchbrenner made in publishing it. A 



DESCRIPTION FROM PROFESSOR McALPINE, DRAWN FROM THE 

 FRESH PLANT. 



Receptacle with hollow stem, expanding above into five arms, directed 

 upwards and outwards. Stem salmon pink, slightly darker at top, fully three 

 inches long, rugose with small depressions running more or less in lines and 

 slight ridges running cross-wise, so that it looks as if divided into a series 

 of squares, about y 2 inch in diameter towards the tapering base and "s inch 

 at top. Arms three inches long, merging into stem and tapering to a point, 

 blood-red on inner face, convex and broken up into larger or smaller cavities, 

 on outer face there is a continuation of the color of the upper portion of the 

 stem and gradual darkening until toward the tip it is blood-red like inner 

 face with thickened, slightly raised margins and central furrow broken up into 

 small cavities. 



Gleba blackish with tinge of bronze green, extending along the inner sur- 

 face of each arm, but not covering the slender tip. 



Volva somewhat cup-shaped, about as long as broad (i% inches: dirty- 

 white, splitting at the apex, tapering towards the base and provided there 

 with turfs of elongated fibrous roots. 



Spores hyaline, cylindrical to elongated ellipsoid, rounded at both ends, 



5 We do not 



e do not print these criticisms of Kalchbrenner's work unadvisedly, for while we 

 know nothing as to the original of Anthurus Mullerianus and we think there is no tvpe in 

 existence we do know that Kalchbrenner published several fake pictures. The most noto- 

 lous ot them was the picture of Secotium excavatum, based on a Strobilomyces and so drawn 

 is-drawn that it really had some resemblance to a Secotinm. 



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