Gan ea 
IV. On some spi the Genus Agaricus from Ceylon. 
By the Rev. M. J. BERKELEY, M.A., F.L.S., and C. E. Broome, Esq., F.L.S. 
(Plates XXXIII. & XXXIV.) 
Read November 19th, 1868. 
THANKS to the exertions of Mr. Thwaites, in addition to those of Konig in the last 
century, and of Dr. Gardner, Mr. Thwaites's predecessor in the direction of the Gardens 
at Peradeniya, no member of our British Colonies bids fair to be more thoroughly 
known, as regards its fungology, than Ceylon. The species collected by Kónig were pub- 
lished in the * Annals of Natural History, vol. x. 1842; while those of Dr. Gardner, 
together with some of Mr. Thwaites's earlier communications, have been described in Sir 
W. J. Hooker's * London Journal of Botany, 1847, p. 495, and the * Kew Garden Miscel- 
lany,” 1854, p. 229, &c., and we have 1200 packets of Fungi from Mr. Thwaites, on 
which we are now occupied. The last communication was accompanied by some very 
beautiful and correct drawings of some of the Hymenomycetous Fungi, two or three of 
which are so interesting, either from beauty or singularity, that we are induced to lay 
them before the Society, and at the same time to give characters of a few other species 
which are worthy of more immediate record, or because the drawings throw light on the 
character of species already described. 
It is remarkable that we cannot identify a single species, with the exception of one 
or two which are very widely distributed, with any of those of which Dr. Hooker made 
drawings in Sikkim and the contiguous districts. 
We have now in our possession a large number of more or less finished coloured 
sketches of Hy ycetous tropical or subtropical fungi; and we trust that the time 
is not far distant when it will be considered quite as necessary, in publishing floras of our 
colonies, to give complete lists of the eryptogamie as of the phenogamic plants. The 
- species which we have selected for description are the following :— 
1. AGARICUS (AMANITA) HEMIBAPHUS, Berk. & Br. Pileo e campanulato expanso glabro 
obtusissime umbonato flavo, sursum coccineo, margine sulcato crenato; stipite 
farcto, (basi excepta attenuata) subæquali, pallide flavo, e volva crassa bilobata 
oriundo; annulo supero deflexo striato lato; lamellis albis segmentiformibus adnexis. 
(Thwaites, Ceylon, n. 700.) 
Hab. On the ground, July 1868, Peradeniya. - 
Pileus nearly 3 inches across, yellow, the upper half of à beautiful scarlet ; margin 
deeply suleate; stem 4 inches high, j an inch thick, attenuated as in Phallus and its 
allies at the very base, where it sinks into the strongly incrassated bilobed volva, which 
gives off a few short fibres. 
This belongs to the first section of the subgenus Amanita, in which it is remarkable 
for the great thickness of the volva and the attenuated base of the stem. 
