THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
165
Schizophyllum commune Fr.
Cortinarius (Dermocybe) mystillinus Fr.
Polyporus tephroleucus Fr.
Grandinia helvetica (Pers.) Fr.
Hypochnus subfuscus Karst.
Corticium botryosum Bres.
Peniophora pubera (Fr.) Sacc.
Peniophora incarnata (Pers.) Cke., var. hydnoidea (Pers.) Bourd and
Galz. (= Radulum laetum)
Clavaria stricta.
Among other interesting forms exhibited were Geoglossum glabrum,
Hydnum coralloides, Lycoperdon caelatum, Clavaria pistillaris and C. fusi-
formis. Two remarkably fine examples of Armillaria mucida were found
growing on a pollard hornbeam, an unusual host plant for this beech parasite.
Tea was served at 5 o'clock at the headquarters; following which a
meeting of the Club was held at which four candidates were nominated for
election as members.
The President, in calling upon the several conductors for their reports
on the day's finds, observed that that meeting—the first Foray organised
in conjunction with the British Mycological Society—marked in his opinion
a milestone in the history of the Club. He mentioned that year by year
since the foundation of the Club in 1880, its Fungus Foray had been held
(almost invariably in Epping Forest), and he spoke of the older mycologists—
Worthington G. Smith, Dr. M. C. Cooke, George Massee, and others, now
deceased—who had joined those forays and given their expert services in
bygone years. He thought that mere collecting was not enough, the ecologi-
cal study of the Fungi should be undertaken, and now that the British
Mycological Society had joined forces with the Club, it seemed appropriate
that some such intensive study should be inaugurated.
Miss Lorrain Smith, Messrs. Ramsbottom, Pearson and Gould, made
some apposite remarks: Miss Wakefield, who was unfortunately suffering
from a severe cold, was not called upon to speak.
Miss Lister said that her own especial proteges, the myxomycetes, had
been exceptionally abundant that day, doubtless by reason of the week of
fine weather following much rain, no fewer than 36 species having been re-
corded.
On November 21, 1896, at the Club's Foray, in the neighbourhood of
Cook's Folly, Walthamstow Forest,1 a rare myxomycete (Badhamia rubi-
ginosa var. dictyospora) was found in the Forest for the first time, and had
never again been recorded until to-day, when multitudes of its pinkish white
sporangia, in perfect condition, scattered over a space of seven yards by
four yards, had been found by Miss Greaves, covering fallen twigs and leaves:
in some cases the plasmodium had surged up the hornbeam trunks themselves
for some six inches and had there formed into colonies of sporangia. The
full list of species found was as follows:—
Badhamia utricularis.
B. rubiginosa, var. dictyospora.
Physarum nutans with the var. leucophaeum, and var. robustum; abund-
ant.
1 The first occasion on which the Club had made the search for myxomycetes a special part
of the day's programme. See Essex Naturalist, ix., p. 250.—Ed.