Family 2. FIMETARIACEAE! 
By Davip GRIFFITHS AND FRED Jay SEAVER 
Perithecia superficial or deeply sunken in the substratum, and often erum- 
pent at maturity, thin and membranaceous to coriaceous, slightly transparent 
to black and opaque; usually without a stroma, but, if with stroma, the 
perithecia sunken with projecting papilliform beaks. Asci usually very 
delicate, surrounded by long paraphyses or intermingled with them. Spores 
usually dark-colored, simple or compound, surrounded by a hyaline gelatinous 
envelope or ornamented with hyaline gelatinous apiculi. Plants entirely sapro- 
phytic and generally growing on dung. 
Stromata absent. 
Spores simple (except Pleurage zygospora). 
Ascus perforate; spores partially or entirely surrounded by a hyaline, 
gelatinous envelope. 1, FIMETARIA. 
Ascus not perforate, but opening by the breaking off of the inelastic 
asctts apex; spores ornamented by secondary, gelatinous appendages, 
with or without primary ones. 2. PLEURAGE. 
Spores compound. 
Spores 2-celled. 3. DELITSCHIA. 
Spores 4-many-celled. 4. SPORORMIA. 
Stromata present ; spores compound. 5. SPORORMIELLA. 
1. FIMETARIA Griffiths & Seaver. 
Sordaria Ces. & De-Not. Comm. Critt. Ital. 1: 225, in part. 1863. 
Perithecia scattered or aggregated, superficial or sunken, membranous or coriaceous, 
dark and opaque; asci with an apical perforation and stretching at maturity; spores 
simple, usually dark-brown and wholly or partially surrounded by a gelatinous hyaline 
fugacious envelope. 
Type species, Sphaeria fimicola Roberge. 
Perithecia not hairy or bristly. 
Perithecia coriaceous. 
Perithecia membranaceous. 
Spores subglobose, small, 5 x 8 #. 
Spores ellipsoid. 
Spores large, 15-18 x 25-34 #, rounded at both ends. 
Spores smaller, 11-13 x 16-234, acutely rounded below. 
Spores obovoid, acutely rounded below. 
Perithecia hairy or bristly. 
Asci 8-spored. 
Beak long and hairy. ; 
Spores with apiculus at each end. 6. F. montanensis. 
Spores with apiculus at lower end only. 7. F. alpina, 
8 
. F. bombardioides. 
. FF. minima. 
. F. macrospora, 
. & fimicola. 
. & humana. 
mAPw HN 
Beak papilliform, conic, or wanting. : 
Hyaline envelope surrounding lower third of spore only. 
Hyaline envelope surrounding entire spore. 
. &, seminuda, 
Spores conspicuously flattened, comparatively large. 9, F. discospora. 
Spores ellipsoid to subglobose, comparatively small. 10. #. leucoplaca. 
Asci 32-spored. 11. F. philocoproides. 
1. Fimetaria bombardioides (Auersw.) Griffiths & Seaver. 
Sordaria bombardioides Auersw.; Niessl, Verh. Nat. Ver. Briinn 10?: 187. 1872. 
Hypocopra bombardioides Sacc. Syll. Fung. 1: 243. 1882. 
Perithecia superficial, crowded and confluent at the base, 0.5 mm. wide by 1 mm. long, 
thick, coriaceous, chestnut-brown to black, ovoid, oblong, or pyriform, broadly rounded above, 
and terminating in a small papilliform ostiolum:; asci 8-spored, cylindric, broadly rounded 
19 take the place of Sordariaceae. 
Part 1, 1910] 65 
