No. 57. J 
[September, 1882. 
dmitlea, 
A QUARTERLY RECORD OF CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY 
AND ITS LITERATURE. 
A MONOGRAPH OF THE BRITISH HYPOMYCES. 
By Charles B. Plowright. 
With Illustrations of all Species, by Dr. M. C. Cooke, M. A., A.L.S. 
There are several points which render the members of this genus 
specially interesting to the mycologist, and which make it a 
promising field for the worker. In the first place, the nature of 
matrices upon which the species grow fungi. Hypomyces are inter 
alia fungi growing upon other fungi. These fungous hosts vary 
in nature and in quality very considerably. Some are living fungi, 
which afford the Hypomyces a home long ere they themselves have 
attained maturity ; for example, H. luteo-virens , Fr., grows upon 
agarics. It has occurred near King’s Lynn for three successive 
seasons, yet, although attention has been especially directed to this 
point, it has not, as yet, been possible to determine with certainty 
what the agaric is, for the simple reason that the Hypomyces 
attacks it before it appears above ground, and so alters its appear- 
ance, that beyond recognising the fact that it is an agaric, its 
genus, much less its species, cannot be determined. Prof. P. A. 
Karsten, however, has met with this Hypomyces in Finland, upon 
various species of Lactarii , and it is highly probable that, in the 
course of time, this observation will be confirmed in this country. 
More commonly, however, these parasites attack fungi which have 
attained, or even passed their maturity, as H. chrysospermus , 
aurantius, rosellus , &c. Some grow upon the fleshy Agancini and 
Boleti , others upon the tough, coriaceous Polyporei and Sterei , 
while two species affect such ephemeral hosts as the Myxomycetes 
afford. But perhaps the most remarkable species grows, not upon 
the fungus itself, but upon the ground under or near where it has 
decayed, this decay being the result of the growth of an earlier 
stage of the Hypomyces. In other words the Hypomyces, in its 
conidial stages, first attacks the host fungus, and by causing its 
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