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PEZIZA (DISCINA) MACROCALYX, Riess ; A NEW
BRITISH FUNGUS.
13y Worthington G. Sjhith, Esq., F.L.S.
(Plates XCVIII. and XCIX.)
This fine Peziza was found by my friend Mr. J. Aubrey Clark, of
Street, Somerset, in March of the present year. It grew in a Fir
wood at Street in some plenty, and the specimens were half buried in
the ground. I am indebted to Mr. C. E. Broome for the name and
a reference to Fresenius' ' Beitrage,' p. 75, where it is described and
indifferently figured in outline. The following particulars, freely trans-
lated from the German, exactly accord with the Street plants.
" This fungus is found underground in forests of Fir-trees singly, or
from two to five together ; in its progressive development it rises
about one-half out of the ground. At first it is closed, but later it
splits star-like from the top downwards to the middle of its cups, or
sometimes even further down still, into from seven to ten more or less
pointed strips. The exterior is a dirty pale blue, clothed with a thin
white transient fur, and at the base of the cup is a short stem. In
large-sized specimens the cup itself reaches a height of three inches,
with a similar breadth, deeply cup-shaped with the rim at length bent
outwards. Its substance consists of a soft, spongy tissue, composed
of very large cells, elongated on the outside, and growing more and
more globular towards the inner side, attaining a thickness of one line.
The inside of the cup is covered by the hymenium of at first a pale,
and later a dark violet, formed of tubular, truncated asci, each contain-
ing eight elliptical sporidia one quarter of a millimetre long, and of
branched, articulated paraphyses of the same length : each sporidium
containing one or two drops of oil. This Peziza, to judge from the
figure in Greville's ' Scottish Cryptogamic Flora,' is closely related to
P. vesiculosa, and might even be taken for a variety of that species
were it not for several reasons against it. Besides its different place
of growth, it dilfers especially in the colom- of the hymenium, and the
peculiar shape of the paraphyses."
It was originally my intention to have written a paper for the
' Jom-nal of Botany ' on abnormal growth of Fungi, and their bearing
VOL. VII. [DECEMBER 1, 18G9.] 2 B