BULLETIN 
OF THE 
rORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. XIL1 New York, July, 1885. [No. 7 
The Genus Cintractia. 
V 
By William Trelease. 
(Plate L.) 
In the Southern States and West Indies, species of Cyperus and 
Ftmbristylis and, perhaps, other Cyperaceae are attacked by a rare 
smut which forms compact, black, fusiform swellings in their flower- 
stalks. This fungus was named Ustilago axicola, by Berkeley, in an 
enumeration of fungi from San Domingo, published in the Annals of 
Natural History for March 1852. A variety is mentioned in Grevil- 
lea, iii., p. ^cj. Specimens from the Kew herbarium have been more 
recently studied by Cornu, who found the mode of fruiting so un- 
like that of other species of Ustilago that this species was made the 
type of a new genus called Cintractia in honor of & French botanist 
by the name of Cintract.* 
This genus, which has a close affinity with Testicularia, possesses 
persistent mycelium, which may be seen in the form of delicate, col- 
orless threads in the central portion of the peduncle and other dis- 
eased parts, below the surface of which it becomes aggregated mto a 
compact, gelatinous stroma, from the outside of which spores are 
successively differentiated, so that the innermost are always young 
and pale, while the outer spores, which are at first held together by 
the remnants of the stroma, deepen in color and gradually separate 
as they mature. • , ■ ,^ , 
Specimens of C. axicola (B.), on Fimbristylis, collected m Cuba 
by Wright, and preserved in the Curtis herbarium under the number 
721, for which I am indebted to Professor Farlow, agree m all essen- 
tials with the description drawn by Cornu from a specimen on Cy- 
P'^us. In both, the mycelium forms a compact, dark-brown stroma, 
^vhich surrounds the medullary and fibro-vascular portion of the 
stem, and is produced outward in a series of tapering ridges of the 
same color, between which the fertile hyphne form wedge-shaped 
masses of spores that, when mature, are nearly spherical, smooth and 
of a deep brown color, and measure 12-18//, the most usual size 
being about i/^fx. . . 
^ On the receipt of Cornu's paper, I was struck by the resemblance 
•^t a smut on /uncus tenuis to Cintractia axicola. This species, 
, * Maxime Cornu : Sur quelques usUlaginees nouvelles ou peu conn 
nalesdes Sciences Naturelles, Botaniquc i\, p. 277-279- P^- '5. hg. 1-3- 
3U connues, in An- 
