Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/631

 TAB. CCCXXXVI.

common on the old stalks of Arundo phragmites, bursting its way through the outer coat of the stalk, mostly in oblong series. The spharulæ, which he lengthwise in single rows, can scarcely be discerned without a magnifying glass. TAB. CCCXXXVII.

is something like Bulliard's Hypoxylon clavatum, tab. 444. Jig. 5. differing chiefly in being rough on the outside. It grows from the inner bark of rotten sticks, lacerating the outer bark, and seldom holding more than one ovate capsule, which is supported in the middle of the head or clavated part on an irregular stem. I have always found it black, except the middle coat of the capsule, which is white. TAB. CCCXXXVIII. Dicks. Crypt.fasc. 1. p. 23.

Hoff. fasc. 1. t. 1. fig. 2. Perfoon's Obs. myc. t. 1. fig. 4 & 5.

Bull. t. 437. fig. 1.

found this Sphæria in great abundance in some parts of Kensington Gardens, where it grows annually, beginning to show young plants about January, at the fame time that the old ones are in their last decaying state. They seem to be truly monœcious, first producing a whitish farinaceous dust on the whole surface. It seems in perfection about midsummer, when the sphærulæ or capsules are forming, and copiously producing black feeds, which they eject in autumn. In the younger state the texture is somewhat leathery, in the old very fragile. Sometimes it spreads into large patches on old rotten trees.