THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
27
Interesting observations and discussions were made and carried on
by members present, to which the exhibitors and authors responded, and
votes of thanks were passed to the latter.
"CRYPTOGAMIC" RAMBLE IN EPPING FOREST
(443rd MEETING).
Saturday, 5TH December 1914.1
A small but enthusiastic party met at Loughton station soon after
11 o'clock and proceeded through the Forest by way of Loughton Camp,
Little and Great Monk Woods, Dulsmead Hollow, Jack's Hill, Long
Running, Epping Thicks and Piercing Hill, to Oak Hill, collecting fungi,
myxomycetes, lichens and mosses en route. The conductors were Miss G.
Lister, F.L.S., Mr. F. G. Gould, Mr. Robert Paulson, F.L.S., and Mr.
Percy Thompson.
The party was rewarded by a perfect sunny day and moonlit evening,
which, coming as an interlude in a season of gales of wind and rain, was
all the more appreciated.
No great rarities were found, but a number of forms of considerable
interest in each department rewarded the searchers, and the total spoils,
when exhibited on the tables at the head-quarters at Oak Hill Farm,
furnished abundant material for a most interesting discussion which
followed tea, when the President, Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S.,
took the chair and called upon the several conductors to speak on the
day's finds.
Miss Lister reported a very poor yield of Myxomycetes, only six forms
having been found, but these included the interesting Colloderma oculatum,
which seems to be of wide distribution in our Forest, and it was noted
that this myxomycete occurs not only on mossy tree-trunks, but also
at and near the base of the trunks, associated with the ground mosses,
Tetraphis and Campylopus, which affect that position. Another
interesting form met with was Trichia botrytis, which exhibits character-
istic thickenings in the walls of its sporangia.
Mr. Gould observed that this autumn had proved a very bad one
for fungi, on account of the long drought, and although persistent search
had that day yielded a fair "bag" of some 36 species, individual specimens
were scarce. The white-spored agarics were the most numerous, and
Collybia butyracea had that day been by far the most abundant form.
Phlebia merismoides and Irpex obliquus were found growing on some logs,
and some good specimens of Hygrophorus hypothejus were discovered in
the fir plantation which crowns Piercing Hill. Mr. Percy Thompson (in
the absence of Mrs. Thompson through a slight cold) made some remarks
on the Mosses collected during the day; the only important form being
Zygodon forsteri, which was seen growing plentifully, with both old and
developing capsules, on a beech trunk in Monk Wood.
Mr. Paulson gave an account of the twenty Lichens recorded, which
included several forms of interest, such as Platysma glaucum, Physcia
1 I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. Percy Thompson, for this report.—W. Cole.