GRIFFITHS: West AMERICAN FUNGI 295 
on the same host. Examination of herbarium specimens of the 
grass shows that the fungus is widely distributed throughout the 
Southwest. Its persistently tectate condition is very noticeable in 
all the specimens examined. The author made a large collection 
(214) in the Santa Catalina Mountains, in Arizona, in Nov. 1900. 
In the following April, when the locality was visited again, the 
fungus (2142) appeared to be as perfectly preserved as it was five 
months before. Large herbarium specimens of the host have been 
seen with every seed destroyed by the smut, but notwithstanding 
the vast amount of handling, none of them were ruptured. 
Professor Norton reports that the fungus causes a shortening 
of the awns of Aristida purpurea in Kansas. Such is not the case 
with the host mentioned above for there is apparently no modifi- 
Cation of any portion of the plant except the ovary. 
Sorosporium bigelovie sp. nov. 
Fungus attacking and destroying the inflorescence especially, 
but involving also the bracts and often the upper leaves of the 
branches, The florets become transformed into a globular mass 
filled with light brown spores and surrounded by a thin pellicle 
Consisting of the modified involucral covering. The leaves be- 
Come very much swollen especially near the base, the whole in- 
terior being transformed into a mass of spores. Spore masses 
very variable, elongated globular or polygonal and containing 2— 
6 spores (usually only 3 or 4) commonly 13-21 # in diameter but 
often as high as 25~30 4. Spores globular, globose or compressed 
and polygonal, 7—10 yin diameter ; epispore thick, distinctly tuber- 
culate and of light straw color. (Fig. 4.) 
On Bigelovia (399) Tucson, Arizona, Nov., 1900. This was 
the most common fungus to be found in the Santa Cruse valley 
Near Tucson during the fall and winter of o>) 
1900. But, while this is true, it is very @ & 
likely to be overlooked because the attack  () 2B 8) 
of the smut is not at all conspicuous. In : & 
one locality north of the city a dense > 
Srowth of the host along a fence row for 
* distance of at least ten rods produced 
almost no seed. Some plants had nearly all the flower heads 
formed but destroyed, while others had their growth arrested by 
the abundant fructification of the fungus in the bases of the upper 
ves, 
Fic. 4. Spores of Soras- 
porium bigelovia. X 115. 
