The Genus Endocalyx, Berkeley and Broome. 
BY 
T. FETCH, B.Sc., B.A. 
Mycologist to the Government of Ceylon. 
With Plate XXIV. 
T HE genus Endocalyx was established in 1875 by Berkeley and Broome 
for the reception of two ‘ species 5 sent from Ceylon by Thwaites. 
They characterize it as £ peridium calyciforme, pedunculatum, villosum, 
demum ruptum, e basi crassa oriundum ; sporae subglobosae echinulatae,’ 
and place it in the Myxomycetes, with the remark : ‘ This curious genus is 
evidently closely allied to Alwisia. The spores, however, are very different 
and not half the diameter.’ Saccardo lists it among the doubtful genera, 
and it is not referred to by any of the compilers of Engler-Prantl, Pflan- 
zenfamilien. Mr. Lister does not refer to it in his monograph of the 
Mycetozoa. 
The genus does not appear to have been identified since, and apparently 
the type-specimens have not been re-examined. Part, at least, of Thwaites’s 
gathering is in the Peradeniya herbarium, and an examination of this shows 
at once that it does not belong to the Mycetozoa, and that the two species 
are identical : they were, in fact, based on an incorrect separation of one 
of Thwaites’s numbers, a frequent occurrence in the examination of his 
consignments. The resemblance to Alwisia is not very evident, and what 
resemblance there is is purely superficial : the spores are three to four 
times the length of those of Alwisia. 
Although I have not succeeded in collecting fresh specimens of this 
species, two other members of the same genus have been found in the 
Peradeniya Gardens, and by the help of these it is possible to interpret the 
herbarium specimens of Endocalyx Thwaitesii, B. & Br., and Endocalyx 
psilostoma , B. & Br., both of which were founded on damaged specimens. 
One of these forms does not appear to have been described before; the 
other occurs most abundantly on all dead palms, and has been named and 
described from almost every tropical country ; but as its structure could 
never be accurately made out from the preserved specimens the descriptions 
have never been recognized by later workers. No one who collected Fungi 
in the Tropics and included the smaller forms in his collection could fail to 
Annals of Botany, Vol. XXII. No. LXXXVIL July, 1908.] 
