Miscellaneous. 451 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



DISCOVERY OF CLATHRUS CANCELLATUS IN BRITAIN. 



Such readers of the ' Annals ' as take an interest in cryptogamic 

 plants will doubtless be glad to learn that Clathrus canceUatus, a ge- 

 nus and species new amongst British Fungi, has been discovered this 

 autumn in the Isle of Wight, both by Mr. R. Kippist, Librarian to the 

 Linnsean Society, and myself, quite independently of and unknown to 

 one another, and in very different localities ; Mr. Kippist having met 

 with it close to this town (Ryde), and my plant occurring at the back 

 of the island. I do not know the date of Mr. Kippist's finding the 

 species here, but feel pretty certain it must have been anterior to my 

 meeting with it, which was about the beginning of October, in a 

 damp rocky and grassy hollow, just within and at the bottom of the 

 Pelham woods by St. Lavvrence, where it grew in tolerable plenty 

 over an area of perhaps some seventy or eighty square yards or more 

 of sward. My attention was involuntarily drawn to it by the exces- 

 sively repulsive odour of carrion that pervaded the air around the 

 spot, and which induced me to look about for the Phallus impudicus, 

 a species well known to emit a scent so analogous to that of a dead 

 animal, as to attract and apparently deceive the flies, and induce 

 them to deposit their ova on the slimy pileus. The specimens of 

 Clathrus cancellaius I found were many of them as large as an ordi- 

 nary-sized orange, and presented the appearance of a very coarse or 

 open network, forming slightly collapsed hollow sj)heres of a bright 

 flesh-red precisely like raw meat, the vessels of which are still filled 

 with blood ; the texture externally cellular and I think laminated, 

 emitting an odour which, unlike that of Phallus impudicus, was equally 

 offensive, whether near to or removed from the organ of smell. This 

 curious fungus was shown to me last year as something remarkable 

 by a gardener on the grounds of — Walkingshaw, Esq., at Old Park 

 near Niton, but in so decomposed a state as scarcely to exhibit its 

 characteristic form ; nor was I aware of the interesting addition made 

 by Mr. Kippist and myself to the cryptogamic flora of this country 

 till, being in London last week, and incidentally mentioning the cir- 

 cumstance of finding it to Mr. J. de C. Sowerby of the Botanic Gar- 

 den, Regent's Park, I was made acquainted by that gentleman, and 

 afterwards by SirWm. Hooker, with the fact of Clathrus canceUatus 

 being unrecorded as a native of Britain, and indeed supposed exclu- 

 sively indigenous to the more southern parts of Europe. It is pro- 

 bably not uncommon, at least in this island, where, as we have just 

 seen, it occurs in three distinct localities, two of which are several 

 miles asunder. 



Ryde, Nov. 11, 1843. Wm. Arnold Bromfield, M.D. 



LITHIC acid in LUCANtrS CERVUS. 



While engaged, during the past summer, in dissecting a male 

 Lvcanus Cervus, I found upon opening the intestine, that the caecum, 

 colon and rectum contained a dense greenish matter, of a soapy con^ 

 sistence, covering their internal surface, and which escaped slowly 

 into the water, in which the specimen was immersed for examina- 

 tion, in the form of a thick cloud. Upon placing some of it under 



