116 FUNGI. 



Fr., both of which become discoloured and bleeding when 

 bruised, while Oorticium lactescens distils a watery milk. 



Fungi in general have not a good repute for pleasant odours, 

 and yet it must be conceded that they are not by any means de- 

 void of odour, sometimes peculiar, often strong, and occasionally 

 very offensive. There is a peculiar odour common to a great 

 many forms, which has come to be called a fungoid odour ; it is 

 the faint smell of a long-closed damp cellar, an odour of mouldi- 

 ness and decay, which often arises from a process of eremocau- 

 sis. But there are other, stronger, and equally distinct odours, 

 which, when once inhaled, are never to be forgotten. Amongst 

 these is the fetid odour of the common stinkhorn, which . is in- 

 tensified in the more beautiful and curious Claihrus. It is very 

 probable that, after all, the odour of the Phallus would not be so 

 unpleasant if it were not so strong. It is not difficult to imagine, 

 when one encounters a slight sniff borne on a passing breeze, 

 that there is the element of something not by any means un- 

 pleasant about the odour when so diluted ; yet it must be con- 

 fessed that when carried in a vasculum, in a close carriage, or 

 railway car, or exposed in a close room, there is no scruple about 

 pronouncing the odour intensely fetid. The experience of more 

 than one artist, who has attempted the delineation of Claihrus 

 from the life, is to the effect that the odour is unbearable even 

 by an enthusiastic artist determined on making a sketch. 



Perhaps one of the most fetid of fungi is Thelephora palmata. 

 Some specimens were on one occasion taken by Mr. Berkeley into 

 his bedroom at Aboyne, when, after an hour or two, he was hor- 

 rified at finding the scent far worse than that of any dissecting 

 room. He was anxious to save the specimens, but the scent was 

 so powerful that it was quite intolerable till he had wrapped them 

 in twelve thick folds of the strongest brown paper. The scent 

 of Thelephora fastidiosa is bad enough, but, like that of Cqprinus 

 picaceus, it is probably derived from the imbibition of the ordure 

 on which it is developed. There needs no stronger evidence 

 that the scent must not only be powerful, but unpleasant, when 

 aTn artist is compelled, before a rough sketch is more than half 

 finished, to throw it away, and seek relief in the open air. A great 



