1903] Thaxter, — A New England Choanephora 97 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CRYPTOGAMIC LABORA- 
TORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY,—LV. 
R. THAXTER. 
- 
MvcoLoGICAL NOTES, 1-2. 
(Plate 46.) 
1. A New England Choanephora. ‘The genus Choanephora 
includes at present a small group of exceptionally interesting moulds 
which have hitherto been regarded as strictly tropical in their range ; 
two of the three described species, C. Sémonsit and C. infundibulifera, 
having been discovered in India by Dr. Cunningham, while the third, 
C. Americana, was found by Dr. Alfred Moeller in Brazil. The 
natural habitat of these fungi is on the fading flowers or even young 
tissues of flowering plants; but their chief interest lies in the fact that, 
although they are closely related to the Mucors or “bread moulds ” 
and possess similar sporangia and zygospores, their most common 
and characteristic form of fructification is quite unlike that of any of 
their relatives and closely resembles the so-called conidial fructifica- 
tion of some of the higher fungi. This conidial type is often closely 
simulated by certain species of Oedocephalum, a “form genus" 
known to include imperfect conditions of both Basidiomycetes and 
Ascomycetes, and further bears a marked resemblance to species of 
Rhopalomyces, a genus the members of which are as yet unconnected 
with any perfect form. The fertile hypha of Choanephora, which is 
large and highly specialized, rises erect from the substratum on 
which it grows, and becomes distally enlarged to form a more or less 
clearly distinguished terminal head. But while in Rhopalomyces, 
and normally also in Oedocephalum, this primary head, by a proc- 
ess of budding, becomes completely covered by a layer of conidial 
spores, in Choanephora it normally gives rise to short radiating 
branchlets of variable number ; which, after becoming distally swollen, 
produce the spores on the surfaces of the secondary heads thus 
formed. Fig. 1 of the accompanying plate will illustrate the general 
form of this fructification, although it gives but an inadequate idea of 
its striking and graceful appearance. The spores are dark, like 
those of Rhopalomyces, and it is of interest to note that Rhopalomy- 
