DISPERSAL IN CUP FUNGI 299
occurs in dead leaves and twigs in shallow water. From
these the stalked bright yellow apothecia grow up into the
air. They often occur in considerable troops and are very
conspicuous and beautiful. Worthington Smith published
an amusing plate in The Graphic of 1873 (Fig. 5). It shows
Fig. 5. Members of the Woolhope Natural History Society admiring
Mitrula phalloides. After Worthington Smith from The Graphic of 1873.
a number of intimate scenes of the worthies of the Wool-
hope Field Club on foray at Hereford. Amongst these
scenes is one of a group in the rain admiring fruit-bodies of
Mitrula. I have carried out a simple experiment with this
fungus. An apothecium was arranged in a small glass con-
tainer with the substratum containing the mycelium resting
on cotton-wool saturated with water. The container was
roofed over with waxed paper, the stalk of the apothecium
projecting through a small hole in the paper. In this set-up
water could be lost only from the apothecium, and this loss
could be determined by weighing at intervals. The whole,
essentially a weight potometer, was placed in a dessicator
over anhydrous calcium chloride. Over a period of four
days water was lost at a steady rate, and during the whole