48 SPECIES OF GEASTER NEW TO BRITAIN. 
Vv 
of Natural History’ (No. 1306), and under that of G lageneformis, 
Vitt., by Cooke in his ‘ Handbook.’ The latter plant is now 
t 
tunicatus Michelianus, and from a careful examination of these plants 
and their fruit we can find no characters of moment to separate them 
from ours. Our plant is undoubtedly the Geaster figured by Micheli 
to G. fimbriatus), and is the same with the G. tunicatus Michelianus of 
‘Erb. Critt. Ital.’ There is, however, such an endless confusion of 
names, synonyms, poor figures, and imperfect descriptions of this and 
c 
figure (t. 100, f. 1), the same with the dried specimens in the ‘ Erb. 
Critt. Ital.,’ 343 and 979, and distinct both from G. lageneformis, Vitt., 
and G. tunicatus, Vitt. 
‘The following description is prepared from fresh British speci- 
mens :— Outer peridium pale buff, thick, fleshy, generally splitting 
into five or six sub-equal lacinie, clothed on the outside with a thin 
dark brown bark, which agai i 
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patterns ; inner peridium pale slatey buff, spherical ; mouth rominent, 
ntate, 
spores slightly tubereuloso-echinulate, -00014” diameter (in which 
measurement the English and Italian specimens exactly agree). 
hen mature, and when the outer peridium bursts, this plant throws 
itself sometimes 9 inches away from its place of growth. The way 
in which the base of the inner peridium is seated on the centre of the 
Exeter, in Ni ovember, 1868 ; one or two were afterwards seen in the 
same Sees. in 1869; but since that time they appear to have vanished 
rom the spot. 
“The following is Vittadini’s description :—‘ Outer peridium 
splitting to the middle, in nearly equal acuminate lacinie, inner 
stratum very thick, evanescent. Inner peridium sessile, flaccid; 
