ANNALS OF NATURAL HISTORY. VIII.— On the Fructification of the Pileate and Clavate Tribes of Hymenomycetous Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley^ M.A., F.L.S. 1 N the sixth volume of the New Series of the Annales des Sci-ences Naturelles, p. 336, in the Number dated Dec. 1836, but not published till some months later, M. Montagne has the fol-lowing observation under Gomphus rutilus : e( Elle m'a donne occasion de faire des observations precieuses pour le memoire que j'ai eu Phonneur de lire devant l'Academie des Sciences sous le titre de Recherches anatomiques et physiologiques sur Phymenium des Agaricinees." This attracted special no-tice, as my attention had been directed for some time to the real structure of the hymenium in Agarics, which I had rea-son to believe had been altogether misunderstood. It appeared highly probable that the result of his investigations was in substance the same as that to which I had myself arrived, from a series of observations on the supposed asci of Agarics ; but at the same time I felt that, if this were the case, it would not be useless, in a matter of such difficulty and obscurity, to pub-lish an account of my own perfectly independent researches. I was however desirous before doing so of following up the matter in as many genera as could be procured of Pileate Fungi, and this led to an examination of the Clavate group also, which, from their very close affinity, I could scarcely believe, notwith-standing the received notions of mycologists, to differ essen-tially in organization. The facts which presented themselves appeared to me not only interesting from their novelty, but of such importance, that I considered it expedient, as far as pos-sible, to trace the history of the present state of knowledge on the point in question, and it was curious to observe that the earlier notions were the more correct. Since almost the whole of my observations were made, and the greater part of the present memoir drawn up, I have had Ann. Nat. Hist. Vol.1. No. 2. April 1838. g
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