Fig. 2.
I BELIEVE this to be a variety of the above, and of tab. 299. It has been called Rhizomorpha spinosa. The three already mentioned, and one given me by the Rev. W. Kirby, found under the bark of an old water-pipe on the Middlesex side of Westminster-bridge, seem to be the same species.
Fig. 3. R. hybrida.
OLD or rotten wood, roots, &c. are occasionally covered with a black subsftance, which sometimes produces a fort of fructification, determining it to be a perfect Fungus, or Sphæria. This approaches but little towards a perfect Fungus, yet I was not willing to leave it unnoticed in a work where it might be expected. It is of a consistence like the bark of the Rhizomorpha., and of a brownish colour, spreading over, and often in, the cracks of decaying wood. This was covered externally with a powdery light-brown substance.
TAB. CCCXCIII.
Fig. I. SPHÆRIA nigra.
Small, flattish, indented at the top, black on the surface, found on the stalk of a decaying umbelliferous plant.
Fig. 2. S. tuberosa.
SOMEWHAT verrucose, black on the outside, and white within. Its substance is solid, penetrating, or often protruding, through the thick bark of the plant it grows on.
Fig. 3. S. Brassica. Dicks. fasc. 1. p. 23.
NOT uncommon on cabbage-leaves that are left to rot in the autumn. It is often the size of a pea, forming a kind of tubercle, with a blackish crust on the outside, and white within. These two half have been received into the genus Verrucaria by Mr. Persoon; but it is doubtful whether we may not be deceived by them, as by Sphæria tuberculosa of this work, tab. 374. fig. 8. See description.
