444 BRITISH FUNGI 



Very soft and tremellose, bearing crowded, acute spines on the 



under surface. Tremellodon. 



Forming small orange or yellow gelatinous warts on dead wood. 



Dacryomyces. 



Erect, simple or branched, orange or rusty orange. Rigid when 



dry. Calocera. 



Forming small, subgelatinous warts. (Can only be determined 



by microscopic examination, as given under the generic diagnosis.) 



D aery op sis. 



Forming small, gelatinous, ^'ehowisli warts, running down into 



a white rooting base. Ditiola. 



Subglobose, inflated, hollow. Apyrenium. 



Erect, more or less spoon-shaped, or irregular, colour deep red, 



Gyrocephalus. 

 More or less saucer-shaped and attached obhquely to the stem, 



Guepinia. 

 Cap saucer-shaped, attached to a central stem. Femsjonsia. 



NOTES ON THE GENERA 

 AURICULARIA 

 The general consistency of these fungi is soft and subgelatinous 

 when moist, becoming hard and rigid when dry, and reviving again 

 when moistened. Substance thin, a considerable portion being 

 attached to the wood on which it is growing, the upper portion 

 becoming free, and standing more or less at right-angles to the 

 matrix. The upper or sterile portion of the free portion is more or 

 less hairy or velvety, the under surface lurid flesh-colour, and 

 traversed by raised ribs or folds, \\hich break up the surface into 

 irregular pits or depressions. 



HiRNEOLA 



The only British species included in this genus, commonly known 

 as tlie Jew's-ear fungus, met with only on old elder-trees, is more or 

 less human ear-shaped, or shallowly cup-shaped, thin, and is some- 

 what subgelatinous when moist, or feels pliant, like a sheet of india- 

 rubber. The outside is greyish and very minutely velvety or 

 downy ; the inside is polished and shining, more or less wrinkled 

 like the inside of a human ear, and of a dark, dingy flesh-colour. 

 This species is in all probability edible, although I am not aware of 

 its having been tested, but a very closely allied species, H. polytrichi, 

 not uncommon in tropical and subtropical countries, is esteemed as 

 a dainty by the Chinese, and its collection and exportation to that 

 country from New Zealand adds to the revenue of the last-named 

 country. It is one of the species of fungi cultivated in China. 



EXIDIA 



The species included in this genus grow on wood, and form com- 



