REV. J. M. t)U POUT ON A REMARKABLE APPEARANCE OF FUNGI. 550 
with drops of a limpid fluid ; the stems were covered, especially 
near the top, with small white scales, and were nearly as sticky 
as the caps. 
My first impression was that these were all specimens of 
Arjaricus ( Hebeloma ) cruxiuliniformia, of lhilliurd ; but I had never 
seen any specimens of this species (which in its usual form I knew 
very well) so glutinous as these ; and on closer inspection the gills 
were seen to be as much as three lines broad, instead of being narrow 
and of only one line in breadth ; the plants had also either very 
little smell, or a rather sweet one, like Cherry-laurel, instead of a 
smell like radishes. Being somewhat puzzled by these variations, 
I took some specimens to Dr. Plowright, of Lynn, who said he 
had no doubt that they must belong to the above-named species, 
and who showed mo a figure of this species drawn by Persoon, 
with gills quite as broad as those in the specimens before us. The 
doubt about the smell was resolved by ride re nee to a note of the 
Rev. M. J. Berkeley, in which it was described as above. 
To remove all possible doubt, I sent specimens to several of the 
principal mycologists, both in England and in France, and these 
were, without exception, agreed in referring the specimens to the 
above-named species. 
But the question remained, and still remains, unanswered, 
whence came this wonderful crop? The land on which they 
appeared had four years before been growing wheat, and Mr. I’ratt, 
after referring to documents in his possession, informed me that 
the field was under regular cultivation in 1G35, and had been so 
ever since. After the wheat crop had been removed in 1885, the 
land had been ploughed very deeply, so as to make a nursery for 
the trees which were wanted on the estate ; it had all been dug 
over again in 1 886 — both processes being exceedingly unfavourable 
to the growth of the mycelium of the fungi — and then planted in 
strips ten yards wide with Willows, Oaks, Abies douglasii. Black 
Spruce, Pinu * eembra , and Larch. The Willows had grown from 
cuttings taken from a plantation some two miles distant, and the 
labourers on the estate assured me that while they had often seen 
great “ toadscaps ” growing out of the tops of the Pollarded 
Willows, they had never seen any such as these growing on the 
ground about the Willows. The fungi could hardly have been in 
some undeveloped state in the ground, for more than two hundred 
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