enquiry I found it to be a beautiful phosphorescent fungus, belonging to the genus Agaricus, and
was told that it grew abundantly in the neighbourhood, on the decaying
leaves of a dwarf palm. Next day I obtained a great many specimens, and
found them to vary from one to two inches and a half across. The whole
plant gives out at night a bright phosphorescent light, of a pale
greenish hue, similar to that emitted by the larger fire-flies, or by
those curious soft-bodied marine animals, the Pyrosomae ; from
winch circumstance, and from growing on a palm, it is called by the
inhabitants "Flor do Coco;" the light given out by a few of these
fungi, in a dark room, was sufficient to read by. It proved to be quite
a new species, and since my return from Brazil, has been described by
the Rev. Mr. Berkeley under the name of Agaricus Gardneri, from preserved specimens which I brought home. I had already named it A. phosphorescens, not
being aware at the time I discovered it, that any other species of the
same genus exhibited a similar phenomenon ; such, however, is the case
in the Agaricus olearius of De Candolle; and Mr. Drum-mond, of
the Swan River Colony in Australia, has given an account of a very
large phosphorescent species occasionally found there.*
On
the 10th of February, 1840, we left Natividade, with the intention of
proceeding to the Villa de Arrayas, a small to"wn about thirty leagues
to the S.E. We had made all our preparations to leave on the second,
but had the mortification to find one of our horses missing, which
detained us eight days. It proved, in the end, that some one had taken
the loan of it, for four days after our departure, it was found near
the place whence it had been taken, and was sent after me by my friend
the Juiz dos Orfaos. Leaving Natividade, and skirting the base of the
Serra in a southerly direction, we arrived at the banks of a small
river called the Riacho Salobro, which flows towards the west, and
falls into the Manoel Alvez : its waters are very brackish during the
dry season. The loads had all to be passed over a rude kind of bridge
(pingella) formed of the trunks of two trees, and as both
* Hooker, Journal of Sot. Vol i. p. 215.
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