THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



[April 1, 1864. 



386 



THE BEECH JIORELS OF 



Fig. 1. 



found. Four of the species are South American, two having been col- 

 lected in Chili, one in Tierra del Fuego, and one at Cape Horn. One 

 species only has at present been described from the Australasian islands, 

 and this occurred in Tasmania, but it is exceedingly probable that others 

 will be found when the cryptogamic flora of these important and exten- 

 sive islands has been more thoroughly investigated. 



Edible fungi, belonging to other groups, are not uncommon in the 

 localities indicated, but some of these do not seem to be at present 

 correctly determined, and the rest do not fall within the limits of this 

 notice. 



A single specimen of a species of the present genus exists in M. 

 Delessert's herbarium, which is stated to have been collected by Com- 

 nierson, in the Isle of Bourbon, but there are doubts about the label 

 attached being genuine, since the date given is unfortunately six years 

 subsequent to the death of the person named thereon ; and, moreover, 

 no true beech has yet been discovered on the island. 



The following enumeration includes all that are positively known. 

 A fungus, referred by Bonorden, in his latest work, to this genus, does 

 not appear to me to be correctly placed. 



Darwin's Beech Morel (Cyttaria Danoinii. Berk.) — Egg-yellow ; 



globose, but depressed ; 

 cups small, mouth irregu- 

 lar, at length open. 



On Fayus betuluides in 

 Tierra del Fuego, Decem- 

 ber to June, ' Berk, in Linn. 

 Trans.' 



To the Bev. M. J. 

 Berkeley we are indebted 

 also for a fuller and more minute description of this species. 



Small specimens, half an inch in diameter, are globose, but depressed 

 above and below, so as to resemble a little button mushroon ; strongly 

 ximbilicate below, with the edges of the umbilicus slightly puckered, 

 and supported by a short brown stem, one and a-half line high and 

 two lines thick, which proceeds from the umbilicus, and is granulated 

 like shagreen, as if beset with a small black parasitic spliaria. Epi- 

 dermis tough, very smooth and shining. A vertical section presents a 

 brown fibrous mass springing from the' stem, which gives off on every 

 side elongated radiating fibres, divided from each other hy a dark line, 

 but which do not easily separate trom one another. The divisions of 

 the internal mass towards the circumference are more minute, but well 

 marked, and the epidermis quite distinct. In this state there is not the 

 slightest trace of the peripheral cups. 



In a more advanced stage of growth, when the balls are from one to 

 two inches in diameter, the cups begin to appear, the interior presenting 

 in other respects nearly the same appearance as before, except that the 



