British Gastromycetes . 33 
cells globose or irregularly oblong, minute, soon filled with 
spores, septa indistinct; spores minute, globose, very minutely 
verruculose, pale yellow, becoming brighter, 5-6 \x diam. 
Octaviania compacta , Tub, Giorn. Bot. I tab ii, p. 56 ; 
Tub, Hypog. p. 79, t. xi, f. 3 ; Sacc., Sylb vii, p. 160. 
Exs. — Rab., Fung. Eur. 2502. 
Underground or half-buried. Shoreham, Kent ! Hillydeal 
wood, Otford, Kent ! — France. 
From inch across, furnished with a dense rooting mass 
of pure white mycelium. An anomalous species, referred by 
Tulasne to Octaviania with some hesitation, and presenting no 
close affinities with any known genus. 
Melanogaster, Corda. 
Peridium without any proper or distinct base, branched 
fibres springing from every part of its surface. Cells of gleba 
more or less rounded, large in the centre, and becoming 
smaller towards the periphery, septa thick, continuous with 
the peridium. Spores 3-4, subsesslle on the basidia, smooth, 
generally coloured. 
Melanogaster , Corda, ap. Sturm, Deutsch. FI., iii. 11, p. 1; 
Tub, Fung. Hypog. 92, t. ii, f. 4-6, and t. xi, f. 5-7 ; Sacc., 
Sylb vii, p. 164. 
The absence of a distinct rooting base, branched fibres 
traversing the whole surface of the peridium, and smooth 
spores, are the characteristic features of the present genus. 
Melanogaster variegatus. Tub (Fig. 10). Irregularly globose, 
at first ochraceous or clear yellow, then reddish ferruginous, 
with adpressed tomentum, tramal plates whitish, then bright 
orange, pulp black ; spores brown, elliptic-oblong, 10 x 5 \i. 
Melanogaster variegatus , Tub, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. xi, 
xix, t. xvii, f. 22 ; Tub, Fb Alg. i, 397 ; Tub, Fung. Hypog. p. 
92, t. xi, f. 4, and t. xii, f. vi ; Sacc., Sylb vii, p. 165. 
Octaviania variegata , Vitt, Mon. Tub. p. 16, t. iii, f. 4. 
Tuber moschatum , Bulb, Champ. I. 79, t. 479. 
D 
