Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/628

 TAB. CCCXXIX. Linn.

are called Stinkhorns in moSt country places. The odour is by forme compared to rotten cheese, by others to burning bricks, bones, and the fumes of hartshorn manufactories; but we think, with M Curtis, that the smell is peculiar to itself. We have found this Fungus in most woody places where we have been about London, as in Kensington Gardens, and also about Norwich. It seems to be propagated by the root, which is very fibrous, and generally contains numerous bulbs, from the size of a pin's head to that of a common hen's egg. When approaching to maturity the greater part of the plant is above ground. The stipes is a good example of sudden growth, as we have known it to rise six inches in as many hours. The pileus hangs over the stipes in the form of a cap. The top is a little expanded, and perforated by one or two holes, below which are cellular reticulations holding the dark foetid jelly-like substance, which probably contains the feeds, and which quickly attracts flies and other infects, who soon devour it without any apparent injury to themselves. TAB. CCCXXX. Huds. Fl. Angl. 630. Curt.Lond. fasc. 4. t. 73.

curious little plant is more rare than the above. I have seen it at Hampstead in Lord Mansfield's wood, where Mr. Hunter the gardener finds it annually. I have also found it abundantly in General Money's plantations near Norwich, where I have observed the creeping root more than half a yard long, with the bulbs, some just formed, and others quite arrived at maturity. These either contain the plant in its more or less perfect state, or are found occasionally empty; for it often happens, with this as well as the former species, that the stipes and all above it are discharged by the elastic force, or collapsing, of the volva or bulb. The bulb is more ovate than the laft; the stipes is of a similar construction; the top or head is continued from the stipes, having horizontal plaits, and is of a brick red, covered with an olive-coloured powder, mixed with a gelatinous inodorous substance, and protected by a thin membrane. The stipes of this plant will expand as rapidly as the last. I have often placed specimens by a window over night while in the egg form, and they have been fully grown by the morning. They have never grown with me in the day-time.