32 Massee. — A monograph of 
Hitchcock. When the dried plant is placed in water up to 
the mouth without allowing the inside to become wet, the 
endoperidium contracts from the base upwards, the teeth at 
the same time separating and exposing a large aperture. 
Until the spores are ripe the stem-like base remains small, 
afterwards increasing to 5-6 cm. in length by 1*5-2 cm. 
across, and then consists of yellowish cord-like strands of 
hyphae forming a complicated mucilaginous weft when moist. 
The remaining species agree in all essential points of 
structure with C. lutescens. There is no evidence of the 
presence of a capillitium in any species, the threads described 
by Berkeley as being present in the spore-sac of C. lurida 
prove on examination of the original specimens to be frag- 
ments of the trama that have not become disorganised, owing 
to the plant being immature when collected. The spore-sac 
of C. Ravenelii is described by the same author as ‘ entirely 
filling the cavity of the second peridium 1 / but this is only true 
of the young plant, in which it agrees with all known species ; 
an examination of a mature specimen shows the spore-sac 
contracted at the apex of the endoperidium. Berkeley 
was aware that when young the spore-sac filled the endo- 
peridium, as in speaking of the structure of C. lutescens the 
following statement occurs: ‘The inner peridium .... in an 
early stage clearly lines the outer, and the void space arises 
from its ceasing to grow sooner than the outer V 
In all species, every part of the plant with the exception of 
the spore-sac is perfectly rigid and cartilaginous when dry, 
every part with the exception of the inner surface of the endo- 
peridium becoming swollen and more or less mucilaginous 
when moistened, which probably corresponds to the state of 
things in the living state. 
The genus Husseia was established by Berkeley 3 from an 
examination of two specimens sent by Gardner from Ceylon 
in 1846, and he makes the following remarks on its affinities: 
1 Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xxii. p. 130. 
2 Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. iii. p. 325. 
3 Hook. Lond. Joum. Bot. vol. vi. p. 508, t. 17, 18, fig. 3, a, b ; t. 19, fig. 1, a. 
