Dacryopsis Ellisiana Massee 



By George Massee 



In Mr. Du rand's interesting researches on the genus Holwaya 

 Sacc, which appeared in the June number of this journal, the 

 author has clearly proved that Holwaya gigantea Durand has a 

 conidial form." This conidial form Durand calls Coryne Ellisii Berk. 



Some years ago I gave a full diagnosis * of Coryne Ellisii 

 Berk., drawn up from the type specimen, and discovering that it 

 was a Basidiomycete, named it Dacryopsis Ellisiana. 



Arguing from the material Durand supposed to be Coryin 

 Ellisii Berk., this author remarks as follows : "The matter was 

 further greatly complicated when Massee, in 1894, described the 

 type of Coryne Ellisii, making it one of the types of a new genus 

 of the Basidiomycetes, called Dacryopsis." 



I have again examined Berkeley's type and find that my 

 previous description is correct. The plant resembles a little stout- 

 handled drumstick. The head for some time consists of very 

 slender conidiophores bearing very minute conidia ; at a later stage 

 bifurcate basidia also appear in the head. 



The explanation is quite simple. The Coryne Ellisii of Durand 

 is not the Coryne Ellisii of Berkeley. Why Durand has made 

 such a mistake I am not able to say. The type specimen of 

 Coryne Ellisii Berk, is in excellent condition,- and I have sent a 

 fragment of it to Mr. Durand. 



I observe that the specimen in Ellis, N. Amer. Fung. 1383, 



called u C<nyne Ellisii Berk. {=Stilbum gigantmm Pk.)," although 

 superficially resembling Coryne Ellisii Berk., is in reality a very 

 different fungus, and probably illustrates what Durand has been 

 dealing with and who, like Burt in his paper, " Is there a Basidi- 

 omycetous stage in the life history of some Ascomycetes," had 

 been misled by accepting the specimen in the exsiccati quoted 

 above as representing the species described by Berkeley. 



The above account illustrates the value of a type-specimen, 

 l - e-, the actual specimen on which the species was founded, and~ 

 not another specimen supposed to represent the same species. It 

 urther illustrates the advisability of being quite certain about 

 your species before venturing to indicat e mistakes made b y others. 



*Jour. Myc. 6 : 181, tl. 7./. ig-21. 1891. 



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