CEYLON LENTINI. 
149 
densely in the centre, scattered and concentrically arranged 
elsewhere. In addition to these scales, which are formed by 
the splitting of the cuticle of the pileus, there is usually a 
regular ring of large, black, superficial, flattened, polygonal 
warts, representing the remains of the veil, midway towards 
the margin. Margins striatosulcate. Flesh white, spongy, 
thin, except over the stalk. Stalk equal, 1-2 cm. diameter, 
or expanding upwards, l‘5-3 cm. diameter at ground level, 
2-5 cm. at the ends of the gills, densely velvety with brown, 
or blackish-brown, short tomentum, outer layer cartilaginous, 
internally white and spongy, 3*5-12 cm. high. Gills white, 
then cream-coloured, decurrent, not crowded, rather broad 
(up to 13 mm.), attenuated outwards, sometimes anastomosing ; 
the tomentum of the stalk extends partly along the edges of 
the gills. Spores white, broadly oval, 6-8 X 5-6 pi, or globose, 
6-7 [L diameter. 
On the ground among grass, arising from buried wood at a 
depth of 8 inches or more below the surface. 
Lentinus sajor-caju Fr., Epier., p. 393. 
Lentinus exilis Kl. in B. & Br., Fungi of Ceylon, 401 ; L. 
multiformis B. & Br., Fungi of Ceylon, 404. 
Pileus at first gray, mottled with gray-brown patches, 
becoming pale ochraceous, grayish in the funnel, often spotted 
with red-brown when fully expanded in wet weather, but 
uniformly brown or grayish-brown in drier weather ; faintly 
radially fibrillose, becoming glabrous, depressed, then strongly 
infundibuliform, thin, tough, margin incurved, entire or lobed. 
Up to 11 cm. diameter. Gills white, then ochraceous, narrow 
(1 mm.), crowded, decurrent, their faces covered with erect 
obclavate processes, 60-80 ^ high, 20-30 ^ diameter, composed 
of fasciculate hyphæ. Stalk short and stout, about 2 cm. 
high, 5 mm. diameter, at first white, longitudinally striate, 
with a thick, broad, fleshy decurved ring, triangular in section, 
which usually disappears, leaving the stalk irregularly flbril- 
lose or squarrose. 
On a decaying erect tree trunk, Peradeniya. This species 
is not common at Peradeniya, where I have only once collected 
it. A thick, leathery, white layer was present between the 
bark and the wood, and the majority of the specimens arose 
6(10)16 (20) 
