Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/700

 TAB. CCCCXXVII, numbered CCCCXXV, . 1 and 2.

PEZIZA THIS specimen was sent from near Alcester, by Thomas Purton, Esq. in May, 1810. Being usually found dry, it is crumpled and crowded, so as scarcely to look like a Peziza, but upon being wetted, naturally or otherwise, it reassumes its proper form of a cup. It is of a dark umber brown colour, and smoothish within; lighter, greyer, and a little rough outside. Grows under the epidermis on Elm, I believe.

TAB. CCCCXXVIII.

PEZIZA With. &c.

NOT unusual in Autumn on stumps of Oak, solitary or grouped, laying in damp places. It is tremulous when fresh, pear-shaped when young, of an ochraceous brown a little flecked, forming a concave apex, which dilates to a cup, of a dark brown or black colour as it grows older; it continues to expand till it protrudes its seed, which it does from a sort of capsule or pores, holding eight seeds each, from which circumstance Hedwig makes it an Octospora; it still continues spreading and flattening, its surface becoming more or less wrinkled when it is either eaten by insects, rots or dries to a small hard black wrinkled mass, as figured on the small specimen. TAB. CCCCXXIX.

IN 1806, this parasite was discovered growing in Elm pipes at Weymouth, under rather peculiar circumstances, having completely stopped up the pipes, and prevented the water from passing them. It is altogether rather tough, and is composed of a whitish pith, looking like cotton, and a rather rugged dark brown bark or rind, which is apt to break transversely at right angles, and to split longitudinally. It extends to a great length, perhaps an hundred or more feet; Lady M. Markham sent me a moderate sized piece, which measured between thirty and forty feet; it is branched, the branches being very long, irregular, and simple. It appears to differ from any before figured, and in consequence of its magnitude I have called it Imperialis. The Rev. W. Kirby brought me some small pieces very similar to it, in March, 1802, from a water-pipe that had been taken up near Westminster Bridge, but it had scarcely any pith. The lustre of both is nearly silky outside; the larger branches are of the darkest brown; the inside of the bark rather lighter than the outside.