Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/679

 TAB. CCCCi.

Woodward in Linn. Trans, vol. 2. 58. With. vol. 4. 375.

long wished to add the description of this curious Fungus, as a debt owing in the third volume of this work. It is omitted by Gmelin; and he seems to confound L. sessile with L. stellatum, from which it is certainly distinct—see my plate 80, which I have called L. recolligens. I am greatly obliged to the Rev. Mr. Dalton for setting me right, by favouring me with the specimens of L. recolligens here figured. From many experiments with L. stellatum, and what I would call L. sessile, I find it more apt to recoil or expand than they are, and in a more remarkable manner; for by damping it the volva immediately expands, and in drying it contracts, contrary to what they do, which expand in drying, and coil up on being damped.

It has other characters by which it may be distinguished from them. Its head is orbicular with a large mouth, a little flattened; the volva is thin and smoother. The one figured at tab. 80, now L. sessile, has an ovate head, rather pointed apex, and the mouth scarcely more than as if torn; the head always sessile. The head of L. stellatum is rounder and pedunculated, so is that of L. fornicatum; but its standing so regularly on four points is a sufficient distinction; although their being so nearly alike in other respects has caused some dispute whether this may not be accidental: I have, however, sufficient specimens to show that it is constant.