34 SUGGESTIONS ON THE COLLECTING AND STUDY
In most instances the individuals are small, in average about the
size of a mustard seed, but of a gregarious, or coespitose habit.
There is sometimes a stem, and sometimes none. The head, or
capitulum, is normally subglobose or cylindrical, having an outer
coating, or peridium, which at length bursts and exposes the powdery
contents, mixed with more or less distinct threads. In the early
stages, these organisms are of a gelatinous consistency, almost watery,
like paste, but becoming more firm, and darker coloured with age.
After a little experience they will readily be detected although some
care will be required in their determination. No general description
will convey so good an impression of their appearance as the things
themselves.
The majority of them grow on very rotten wood, or rotting leaves
and twigs, but always in moist situations. It is useless to seek them,
unless there is, or has been, plenty of moisture, to assist in their
development.
Any one prepared to collect and determine these fungi in the
forest district will have an interesting, but not altogether an easy
experience. Very little has been done hitherto, although one of our
members (Mr. Lister) is believed to have devoted some attention to
the subject. Both in spring, summer, and autumn we have found
some of the species, but most in the damp autumn or early spring
days. Being of so fragile a character, the method of preservation,
and even of collection, recommended for the Uredines will be quite
ineffectual and out of place. The only method which occurs to us,
is to go out provided with plenty of shallow pill-boxes, and, when a
specimen is collected to transfer it carefully to one of these boxes
and fix it in position with small pins, or small pellets of tissue paper
laid on the top. If they are white paper boxes the locality and date
can be marked on the top.
The determination of the species will, at the first, present many
difficulties, and will require careful and minute microscopical
examination., There is, however, one advantage, that the examina-
tion may be made at any time after collection, whether in six months
or six years. To assist in this there is one recent book, "The
Myxomycetes of Great Britain," containing numerous plates, and
some 250 figures, with descriptions, in English, of all the British
species.
It may be well to refer to two or three genera, as types, which
may be supposed to represent some of the general features of the