SCLEROTINIA BACCARUM, REHM, AND ITS ALLIES. 149 



Ammothea LiEvis (Hodge). 



Occurs frequently near the Station on the shore.. Varies 

 considerably in colour, from pale yellowish shade to dark brown ; 

 others have claws nearly as in A. echinata (Hodge). In August 

 I got four immature specimens showing the chelae well developed 

 (they disappear later) and the beginning of the ovigerous legs 

 as stumps. 



Ammothea echinata (Hodge).* 

 A. M. N. 



Further search, by the use of townets attached to trawl or 

 dredge, should bring to light other species and increase our 

 knowledge of the distribution of the above species in the Clyde. 

 The method has proved very successful elsewhere. 



Sc/e rot in/a baccarum, Rehm, and its Allies. 



By D. A. Boyd. 



[Read 27th May, 1908.] 



In various parts of Scotland, bushes of Blaeberry (Vaccinium 

 Myrtillus) have been observed to produce in some seasons a 

 considerable proportion of abortive fruits. These usually become 

 stunted in growth, somewhat dry in substance, and whitish 

 in external appearance. So far as Britain is concerned, atten- 

 tion to these abortive berries seems first to have been directed 

 more than twenty years ago by Professor James W. H. Trail, 

 M.D.. F.L.S., Aberdeen University, one of our Society's 

 Corresponding Members, who recognised them to be due to the 

 agency of Sclerotinia baccarum, Rehm, one of the Discomycetes. 

 In his " Revision of Scotch Discomycetes,"! he states that this 

 fungus grows from a sclerotium produced in berries of V. 

 Myrtillus, which it fills up and converts into a white mass ; and 

 that these sclerotia have been found by him in autumn within 



* I have recently taken this species in a few fathoms near Keppel Pier. 



f Scottish Naturalist (New Series) iv. 136. 



