CRYPTOGAMIAFUNGI. 213 



Hangs from the casks and timbers in large tufts, resembling 

 tufts of the finest cotton. It is glutinous, adhering to the 

 fingers when handled, and contains more or less water. 

 The filaments are closely interwoven, and are apt to ad- 

 here to one another ; they are tubular, and often appear 

 alternately contracted at irregular and remote distances. 

 Dr WITHERING has confounded it with Racodium cellare. 



122. HIMANTIA. 



1. H. Candida, filaments very fine, white, radiating, dilated at 

 the extremities in a plumose manner. HOOK. Scot. ii. 35. GREV. 

 Fl. Edin. 470. ; Crypt. Fl. t. 228. Fibrillaria stellata, Sow. Fung. 

 t. 387. 1. 



Hab. On dead leaves in woods, very common. 



I may here give a description of a production, which, whether 

 a vegetable or not, seems to deserve notice on account of its 

 beauty and singularity. The upper figures on Plate VI. repre- 

 sent this object. It was found growing on decayed branches of 

 hazel, and at least twenty specimens were procured all precisely 

 similar. Originating under the bark, and escaping by some fissure 

 in it, the slender stalk rises for about half an inch, and supports 

 a proportionally large head, which is like a glass bead or an egg 

 in miniature. The stalk, when fully exposed, is about 1 1 inch in 

 length, filiform, smooth, hollow, more or less flexuose at the root, 

 and white or brownish. The head or capsule is ivory-white, 

 sometimes tinged with pink, cernuous, ovate, smooth and glossy, 

 tipped with a jet-black lid or operculum, and so hard and compact 

 that it almost rings when dropt on a table. It is densely cellu- 

 lar, and contains in the centre a green oval vesicle, which appears 

 to be formed by a continuation and expansion of the stalk. The 

 vesicle is membranous, and may be with ease entirely removed 

 from the white bed in which it lies. It has no connection with 

 the persistent lid, nor did it contain any fluid or foreign body. 

 It has been suggested by an eminent naturalist, that this produc- 

 tion may prove to be the nidus of an insect ; while another is of 

 opinion that it is a diseased state of Bryum capillare. The latter 

 conjecture is ingenious, but not unattended with difficulties. 



