286 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
The referees were :—
For the Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes : Miss Elsie Wakefield, F.L.S.,
Mr. F. G. Gould, Mr. Arthur A. Pearson, F.L.S., and Mr. J. Ramsbottom,
O.B.E., F.L.S. ;
For the Myxomycetes : Miss G. Lister, F.L.S.;
and the headquarters were, as in former years, at the Roserville Retreat,
Highbeach, in Epping Forest.
A morning party, numbering some 60 persons, assembled at Loughton
station at 10.4: o'clock, and, passing through Loughton village, entered
the Forest at York Hill ; from here the route traversed was by way of Black-
weir Hill, the "gravel pits," Great Monk Wood and the Wake Valley and
so to Highbeach.
Two separate afternoon parties left Loughton station between 2 o'clock
and 3 o'clock, and took the shorter Forest route to Highbeach, via Staples
Hill, Loughton Camp, and Little Monk Wood.
By 4 o'clock a goodly number of specimens had been collected, and were
ou exhibition, duly named, at the headquarters.
Tea was served at 5 o'clock, after which a meeting of the Club was held
with the President, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., in the chair, when the
several referees gave brief reports on the finds of the day.
Miss Wakefield called attention to the periodicity of fungi, a subject about
which very little is known, and she remarked that persons attending field-
forays could do valuable work in recording facts of this nature,
Mr. Ramsbottom remarked on the abundance of Amanita mappa this
autumn, not only in Epping Forest, but throughout the country. He called
special attention to a small agaric Schizophyllum commune, a single specimen
of which had been found growing on a felled trunk that day : this species,
rare in this country, has a special adaptation against drought, its gills being
split lengthways and the two halves separating and arching outwards so as
to enclose and protect the spore-bearing surface in unfavourable times.
[This specimen was secured for the Club's Museum. Ed.]
Miss Lister reported that 14 species of mycetozoa had been found during
the day ; the recent heavy rains had doubtless washed away many other of
these fragile organisms.
The list of mycetozoa is as follows :—
Badhamia utricularis, B, panicea, Physarum nutans and its var. robustum,
Fuligo septica (in its sclerotium stage only), Stemonitis fusca, Comatricha
nigra, C. typhoides, Cribraria vulgaris, Diclydiaethalium plumbeum, Trichia
varia, T. scabra, Arcyria denudata, A. pomiformis and A. cinerea. Trichia
scabra was found on decayed beech logs at High Beach forming a layer of
some five thousand shining orange sporangia.
The President referred to the happy co-operation of the British Myco-
logical Society with the Club on these occasions ; and welcomed members
of the Gilbert White Fellowship, the School Nature Study Union and other
Societies, who were present, by invitation. He also proposed the cordial
thanks of the Club to the conductors and referees, which were heartily
accorded by those 'present.
The proceedings then terminated.
Mr. Pearson has since furnished a complete list of the fungi met with
during the Foray, numbering 184 species and varieties, and including several