26 Massee.- — A monograph of 
Edward Hitchcock in a paper, containing many points of 
interest, relating to the development of the present species : 
‘ On bursting from the soil it is enclosed in a gelatinous 
envelope, like Phallus foetidus , nearly a quarter of an 
inch in thickness. This immediately bursts, even before 
the whole body of the fungus has risen above the ground, 
and the exterior part of it falls upon the soil around the 
fungus in the form of a viscid jelly, and is ere long absorbed 
in the earth 1 / 
The short stem-like base arises from a few firm, white, 
mycelium strands composed of thin-walled, sparsely septate, 
branched hyphae about 4 \x in diameter, the free tips bristling 
with minute amorphous particles of oxalate of lime. After 
removal of the external gelatinous volva, a vertical section 
shows an external colourless zone about 1 mm. thick, sepa- 
rated from the internal portion except at the base by a 
thin red line (Fig. 2). The outermost zone is composed of 
thick-walled mostly aseptate densely interwoven hyphae, 
passing through the red zone into the central less-compact 
portion, where they are mixed with thin-walled, septate, 
branched hyphae, having numerous slightly thickened free 
tips. 
A second specimen, 1.5 cm. in diameter, is spherical in form, 
with a small obtuse umbo at the apex and abruptly at- 
tenuated below into a thick stem-like base about 0-5 cm. 
long, every external part being smooth and of a bright 
vermilion colour. The only evidence of the external gela- 
tinous volva consists in the presence of an irregular carti- 
laginous ridge near the base of the stem. 
When dry the plant is rigid and cuts like horn ; a median 
vertical section in this condition shows the external wall to 
consist of three distinct layers, the two outermost confluent 
at the base, the innermost free below but in contact with 
the middle layer at the umbonate apex. The external layer 
or exoperidium is at first continuous over every part of the 
1 Physiology of the Gyropodium coccineum , by the Rev. Edward Hitchcock, in 
Sillim. Amer. Joum. vol. ix (1825), p. 56, pi. iii. 
