BRITISH PALMELLACE^. 
151 
BXischococcus confexvicola, Nag. Raih. Alg. iii., 54. 
Specimen from Kev. K. C. Douglas. 
The Editor solicits well authenticated additions to the foregoing 
list, with enumeration of localities. 
MIMICKY IN FUNGI. 
By The Editor. 
For thirty or forty years the term “ mimicry ” has been applied 
to certain resemblances in plants to those of other species often 
widely separated from them. It has been objected that the term 
implies a conscious imitation, of which plants are incapable, and 
hence another term, that of “ homoplasy,” has been proposed, but 
not generally adopted ; therefore, with all its imperfections, we 
prefer to adhere to the one which is best known. We will not 
assume that the resemblances to which we wish to call attention 
are other than remarkable coincidences, but even as such they are 
worthy of note. Although a number of instances have been 
indicated amongst flowering plants, very slight attention has been 
paid to these coincidences in cryptogams. Nevertheless, several 
instances have been adduced by Mr. Worthington Smith,* to which 
others may be added. These are chiefly confined to the Agaric 
family, and although some of them striking, they are scarcely so 
satisfactory as they would have been had the resembling plants 
been further removed from each other. Thus, one poisonous 
species, Agaricus, Heheloma, fastihilis, greatly resembling in 
appearance the edible mushroom, Agaricus^ Fsalliota, campestris, 
came up in great numbers upon a mushroom bed, and might have 
caused a disastrous result, had not the fact been detected by an 
adept. Another instance was that of a mass of fungi which also 
made their appearance on a mushroom bed. At first sight these 
closely resembled the variety of an edible species which not un- 
usually comes up in clusters on old beds. It has white spores, 
with a lobed and undulated white pileus {^Agaricus, Clitocyhe, deal- 
batus). The imitating fungus had the same wavy cap, white 
colour, and fungoid odour, but the spores were pink, and its 
structural features were distinctly those of quite a different species 
{Agaricus, Clitopilus, orcella). In this instance both species were 
quite innocuous. Two wholly distinct but very similar fungi 
commonly grow together on wood ashes, or scorched places, where 
charcoal has been burnt ; these are Cantharellus carbonarius and 
Agaricus, Collybia, atratus. In similar localities, and under like 
conditions, two other diverse fungi are ordinarily found growing 
together, Agaricus, Flammula, carbonarius and Agaricus, Flam- 
mula, spumosus, but these are very closely allied species. Simi- 
larly also the closely allied Agaricus, Hyplioloma, fascicularis and 
Agaricus, Hyplioloma, capnoides, or another pair, Agaricus, 
Flammula, alnicola, and Agaricus, Flammula, conissans, are 
* “Gardener’s Chronicle,” February 10, 1877. 
