THE TECHNOLOGIST. [April 1, 1864. 



388 THE BEECH MORELS OF 



essential article of food for the Fuegian. The hoys collect them, and 

 they are eaten uncooked with fish. When we were in Good Success 

 Bay, in Decemher, they were then young ; in this state they are exter- 

 nally quite smooth, turgid, aud of a bright colour, with no internal 

 cavity. The external surface was marked with white spaces, as of a 

 membrane covering a cell. Upon keeping one in a drawer my attention 

 was called, after some interval, by finding it become nearly dry, the 

 whole surface honeycombed by regular cells, and the decided smell of a 

 fungus, with a slightly sweet mucous taste. In this state I have found 

 them during January and February (1833), over the whole country. 

 Upon dividing one, the centre is found partly hollow, and filled with 

 brown fibrous matter, this, evidently, merely acts as a support to the 

 elastic semi-transparent ligamentous substance, which forms the base and 

 sides of the external cells. Some of these balls remain on the trees 

 nearly the whole year. Captain Fitzroy has seen them in June. 



June, 1834. Found some very turgid and highly elastic, a section of 

 the central parts white, and the whole, under a high power looking like 

 a vermicelli pudding, from the number of small threadlike cylinders. 

 At about one-twentieth of an inch from the external surface there were 

 placed at regular intervals small cup-shaped bodies, one-twelfth of an 

 inch in diameter, of a bright Dutch orange. The cup was filled with 

 adhesive, elastic, colourless, quite transparent matter, and hence at 

 first appeared hollow. The upper edge of the cup was divided into 

 conical points, about ten or twelve in number, and these terminated in 

 an irregular bunch of the above-mentioned threads, the cup was easily 

 detached from the surrounding white substance, excepting at the fringed 

 superior edge. Over the cup was a slight pit in the exterior surface ; 

 this afterwards becomes an external orifice to the cup, when the gela- 

 tinous mass has perhaps formed seeds. 



A dried specimen of this fungus may be seen in the Technological 

 Museum, at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham ; arranged with the food 

 products. 



Bertero's Beech Morel (Cyttaria Berterou Berk.) — Pallid-yellow, 



Fig 2. 



irregular ; base sub-elongated ; cups large ; mouths pentagonal, margins 

 split and reflexed. 



