Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/652



THE sphærule is here indistinctly formed of a cottony substance, in the stalk of a vine, bursting the cuticle with a cottony mouth, through which issues a gelatinous tendril of a waxy appearance.

THE outside of this little Sphæria is black, the inside light green, with a small hollow, so that when cut it appears clumsy. It is mostly solitary. The wood it grows on is occassonally stained greenish.

Hypoxylon ostreaceum. Bull. 444. 4.

WE only admit this as a Sphæria on the authority of those who have gone before us; but we strongly suppose it to be the nidus of an insect, as the pupa of some one has always been found in it when in its most perfext state. It opens like an oyster-shell, and is often perforated at the top, perhaps by another insect. TAB. CCCLXXVI.

OT uncommon on hornbeam in Hainault Forest, Essex. I have seen the hard trunks of trees almost covered by it. The sphærules are often difficult to find under the hard bark; they are somewhat compressed, often irregular, and at first rather waxy; afterwards they become a black, brittle, carbonaceous-like substance. TAB. CCCLXXVII.

I UNDERSTAND a great deal has been said about this curious production in Germany, but I believe it was still left undetermined what it could be. Having discovered plenty of it in the neighbourhood of London, upon careful examination it proved to be a Sphæria,