82 
NOMAD FITNGI 
in the affirmative; it is only when our knowledge is approximately 
complete that we shall be able to decide finally what arrangement 
should be adopted. When we consider that many of these fungi are 
often met with under one form only, we must admit the necessity of 
having a provisional name for that form. At the same time it will be 
possible to arrange the various stages of species, so far as they are' 
known, together, and not, as now, on widely separated pages ; and this 
scheme would also meet the requirements of those who merely want to 
discover the names of their finds, if a little typographical ingenuity be 
exercised in placing them so that one may be able to glance through 
all the oecidium-forms, for instance, without reading the descriptions 
of the other stages. 
Finally, I may remind you that I promised to treat of “ Nomad 
Fungi,” and ask you whether the title is not merited by those species, 
of which one begins its existence upon the Dock, and terminates it 
upon the Reed ; another pitches its tent upon the Nettle, and trans¬ 
fers it to the Sedge ; a third on the Coltsfoot, from which it passes to 
the Meadow G-rass; a fourth travels from the Wood Spurge to the 
Common Pea ; a fifth from the Fleabane to the Rush ; and a sixth 
from the Barberry to the Corn. 
ARUM MACULATUM. 
One of the most conspicuous plants which arrests the attention of 
the rambling botanist during the early spring mouths is the Spotted 
Arum or Cuckoo’s Pint (Arum maculatum), the appearance of which is 
thus described by the poet Clare:— 
“ How sweet it used to be when April first 
Unclosed the Arum leaves, and into view 
Its ear-like spindling flowers their cases burst, 
Betinged with yellowish, white, or purplish hue.” 
It is in many respects a peculiar plant, exhibiting in a marked 
degree the curious and most interesting phenomenon of vegetable evolu¬ 
tion of heat, which may be felt by the hand or tested with an ordinary 
thermometer for some hours after the expansion of the spathe. It is 
also one of the few Monocotyledons possessing reticulated veins in the 
leaves. The spadix—the club-shaped organ within the spathe—is a 
spike with a succulent axis, a kind of flower stalk in fact, bearing two 
sorts of flowers—those most essential organs for the reproduction of the 
species by means of matured seeds—stamens and pistils, both destitute 
of calyx and corolla. 
At the base is a cluster of fertile pistils, surmounted by a frill of 
one or two rows of rudimentary organs of the same kind. Above these 
is a group of stamens, and still higher another ring of abortive stamens.' 
These organs are all said to be very good microscopical objects when 
