its common characteristics: but the flesh of the always-hollow stem is always yellow either wholly or only at the margin, while the flesh of the solid stem of Ag. albobrunneus, though it may become hollow when old, is always white; the apex of the former is perfectly. naked but of the latter albo-farinaceus. The gills of Ag. flavobrunneus are emarginate with a distinctly decurrent tooth, and its pileus has always a reddish or yellowish tint, while the gills of Ag. albobrunneus are rotundato-emarginate and not decurrent, and its pileus is brown.

In fine, Ag. flavobrunneus has a strong smell of fresh meal, while Ag. albobrunneus according to Fries has no smell. I have had no opportunity of correcting my impressions since last October, but if I remember rightly some specimens which I brought to Hereford last year, and which were universally admitted to belong to Ag. albobrunneus, had a disagreeable odour.

Ag. ustalis, Fr., in the form in which I have found it, differs conspicuously from the two latter its emarginate gills and stem soon hollow, distinguish it from Ag. albobrunneus; its lack of smell, smooth pileus, the flesh becoming red here and there when broken, distinguish it from A. flavobrunneus.

Ag. pessundatus, Fr., has a strong smell of fresh meal, the pileus is not streaked, the gills are so deeply emarginate as to be nearly free, and the flesh turns red. It has generally a short obese reddish stem, but in mountainous districts a form is found with a white stem three inches long, and with a smaller pileus, which Fries thinks is a separate species if it has no smell, and which then would be Ag. stans, Fr.

ON THE COLOURS OF FUNGI, AS INDICATED BY THE LATIN WORDS USED BY FRIES.

By the Rev. Canon Du PORT, M.A.

SOME five years ago when I was examining the Grammar School at Bradford, in Yorkshire, I asked the opinion of the Head Master and of my Classical Colleague as to the colours indicated by certain words used by the Latin writers. Copies of Virgil and Horace, dictionaries, and commentaries, were produced, and after much discussion we came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, adopted by one of the Commentators, that the application of our names of colours to the names used by the ancients, if ever these were consistent in their use of them, must frequently be but conjectural.

For instance, the word 'gilvus,' for which the Dictionaries generally give the meaning 'pale yellow,' Virgil applies to horses, and he says that they are as bad as white ones-" color deterrimus albis, Et gilvo."-Georg. iii. 80.

Horace applies the word 'luteus,' another form of yellow, to the pallor induced by fear-which, with a more natural epithet, though the noun be somewhat vulgar, when I was at school, we used to call a 'blue funk-but Horace writes thus

(What perspiration-the cold sweat of fear-comes upon
Thy sailors, and what yellow pallor upon thyself.)

Virgil uses this word 'luteus' at one time as synonymous with saffron-colour, for in describing the halcyon days prophesied by the Sibyl, he says that "then there will be no need to dye the wool, for the sheep itself will spontaneously produce a lovely red or a saffron yellow."

But with what to modern eyes seems a strange inconsistency, he applies this same epithet to the dawn, and that we may not imagine he means the yellowish tint indicative of a fine day, he adds the epithet 'rosy.'

"Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis."

Pliny the naturalist uses the same word for the yolk of an egg,-"lutea ex ovis quinque columbarum."

Thus disappointed and perplexed I next sought for some clue in the derivation of our English names.

'Yellow' is undoubtedly the same as the old English 'gelu,' which is very closely related to the German 'gelb,' and ultimately sprung from the same Aryan root as Virgil's epithet for the colour for a horse, namely, 'gilvus.'

The Italian 'giallo' is said (strange as it may seem,) to be descended from

the same old Teutonic 'gelu' as our yellow, while the French 'jaune,' with greater verisimilitude, is derived from the Latin 'galbanus,' a greenish-yellow, the adjective probably being formed from the noun 'galbanum,' which is supposed to be the same as the Hebrew 'chelb'nâh,' the gum used in making incense, and said to be the resin of an umbelliferous plant growing in Syria.

"Confusion became worse confounded," and I was about to give up the question when, becoming possessed of a copy of Fries' Icones Selectæ, I proceeded to compare his descriptions with the colours of the plates.

But even with this help success was rendered uncertain by two serious difficulties-one arising from the very nature of the objects described, the other due to the imperfections of human art. Fungi are seldom of one simple colour; so, while specimens may be easily found as aureo-fulvus, or gilvo-testaceus, &c., it is not so easy to discover one simply aureus, or fulvus, or gilvus, or testaceus. Again many fungi undergo considerable changes in colour either as they grow old or become dry, so that often some doubt remains as to which state of the fungus is represented in the plate.

When a few cases have been found of simple colours then the imperfections of human art introduce a new uncertainty, the same colour in the description of the fungi not being always represented by exactly the same tint in the coloured figures.

In order not to occupy too much of your time, and not to expose myself to an attack along the whole line at once, I shall confine my remarks chiefly to the yellows.

The colour which surprised me most was that represented by a word of which you have already heard something, viz., 'gilvus.' This is no pale nor bright yellow as I had imagined it to be, but a very full yellow with a reddish brown tinge and drawing towards aurantius, i.e., reddish or brownish orange. It is the colour of Boletus bovinus, of Tricholoma civilis, of Clytocybe vernicosus, and opipaClitocybe splendens, better known than these last, has a little too much 'luteus' to be an exact representative of 'gilvus.'

rus.

The results of the comparisons which I have made lead me to arrange the 'yellows' somewhat in the following manner; beginning with the paler forins. Ochraceus, is often a very pale yellow with just a suspicion of drab the colour of the stem of Tubaria paludosus. Sometimes it is much darker.

Sulfureus is the palest of the pure yellows, the colour of Hygrophorus chlorophanus in its typical form, and of the flesh of Pholiota spectabilis.

Luteus is a pure bright yellow: I can give no British species to illustrate it, but can only refer to Fries' pictures of Clitocybe pachyphyllus, Pleurotus ornatus, and Leptonia formosus. It seems to me to be just the colour of the earliest oranges imported. In describing the flesh of Tricholoma flavobrunneus in the Icones Selectæ, Fries calls it 'luteus,' while in the Monographia he had called it 'sulfureus.'

Flavidus is a little fuller, between 'luteus' and 'flavus.' The colour of Clitocybe venustissimus in its paler form and of the stem of Nolanea vinaceus. Flavus is a rich golden colour with no red about it, but perhaps a shade of brown.

The best examples I can give are the ground colour of Tricholoma sejunctus and the pileus of T. quinquepartitus.

Vitellinus is the colour of the well-known Cantharellus cibarius.

Aureus is of course golden; and, it seems to me, inclining to reddish, but I can find no good example but the stem and the edge of the pileus of Cortinarius malicorius. Sowerby has a figure which he calls Agaricus aureus, and which seems to be like Pholiota spectabilis, only that the pileus is of a red orange.

Gilvus I have described above.

Aurantius is what we call orange, a deep yellow with a good deal of red about it. Armillaria aurantius is a good example.

Aurantiacus is hardly as red as 'aurantius'; the dark form of Clitocybe venustissimus about represents this shade, while the paler form becomes 'flavidus.' Fulvus is the colour of a lion; "corpora fulva leonum"; and is represented in Flammula abruptus.

Helvolus, though closely connected by derivation with 'gilvus,' is scarcely a pure yellow it is used to describe wine and grapes: but fulvus' is also used of wine; it seems to be a rich brownish yellow tinged with red, like a faded vine-leaf. The best example I could find is a pale form of Naucoria hamadryas.

Isabellinus is said to be the colour of the horses of the King of Holland,- -a cream colour with a darkish tint in it-the colour of linen that has been worn for some time next the skin.

I have not been able to find an example of pure 'Croceus.' I think it ought to come between 'luteus' and 'flavidus.' I have taken the colour from a solution of saffron.

The only other colours upon which I shall touch are the browns.' Badius is a sort of reddish brown : it is the colour of Collybia distortus and of the upper part of the stem of Mycena cohærens. Fries says that the lower

part of the stem is 'spadiceus,' but in his figure the stem seems to me to be all of one colour, and that, something intermediate between 'badius' and 'spadiceus.' Some of Fries' bays are very red, and nearly the colour of a sorrel horse.'

Spadiceus is a duller and darker colour than 'badius,' and has no red in it: it is the colour of the pileus of Cortinarius variicolor. The name is derived from a palm-branch broken off with its fruit which some Commentators have thought to be 'shining red.' The date, as we know it, is a rich brown and may well interpret 'spadiceus.'

Umbrinus is still darker and is the colour of Cortinarius uraceus.

MR. JENSEN AND THE POTATO

DISEASE.

MR. CHARLES B. PLOWRIGHT made some observations upon the various experiments made by Mr. Jensen in Denmark, with the object of mitigating the ravages of the potato disease, which appeared to have been attended with satisfactory results. They were conducted by a protective system of culture, consisting of giving the Potato plants a second or protective moulding when the first disease blotch is seen upon the foliage, so that the uppermost tubers have a protection of 5 inches of earth over them, at the same time bending the tops so that they hang over the furrows in a half-erect manner; the object being to protect the tubers, by a layer of earth, from the spores of the parasitic fungus which causes the disease. When moulded up in the ordinary way the covering of earth over the uppermost tubers is not, as a rule, more than 1 or 2 inches. Upon this important field of research, we may expect shortly to receive an extended account from Mr. Plowright's pen.

Mr. Plowright also made some observations drawn from his further researches on the Uredines, since the publication of his paper on page 134 of Woolhope Transactions, of 1881.

[The following extracts, recently published in The Gardeners' Chronicle are of sufficient interest to be here reproduced by the permission of the Editor of that paper.]

WHEAT MILDEW.

WHILE Working at the connection of Wheat mildew with the Barberry Æcidium,* I came across a reference in De Bary's papers to the fact, that in America this subject had been at one time made the object of legislation in that country. Being anxious to find out if possible the exact nature of such legislation, I applied to my friend Professor Farlow, of Harvard University. He instituted inquiries, and has just sent me a copy of the law in question, which he obtained from Professor Ames of the law school of that University. It is very interesting to find, that more than a century ago the farmers of the great western continent came to so decided an opinion upon this subject as a matter of practical experience, and forthwith framed a law bearing upon it. For the benefit of those interested I have appended a copy of this law.-Charles B. Plowright, King's Lynn, Dec. 23, 1882.

PROVINCE LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1736-1761, p. 153.

"Anno Regis Georgii II., Vicesimo Octavo chap. x. (published January 13, 1755). "An Act to prevent damage to English grain arising from Barberry bushes. "Whereas it has been found by experience, that the blasting of Wheat and other English

* See Woolhope Transactions, p. 118, 1881.