86 The Scottish Naturalist, 



The district-records are as follows : Tweed, 7 ; Solway, 3 ; 

 Forth, 6 ; Clyde, 3; Tay, 18; Argyle, 1 ; Dee, 24; Moray (south), 

 2 1 ; Moray (north), 1 ; Ross, 4 ; Sutherland, 1 ; Caithness, 1 ; 

 Orkney, 1. The great increase has thus been made in Dee and 

 Moray (south). 



NEW SCOTCH MICEOPUNGI. 

 By Prof. J. W. H. TRAIL, A.M., M.D., F.L.S. 



(All measurements are in thousandths of a 7?iillimetre, unless 



otherwise specified.) 



DURING the past year or two, in the course of work among 

 the Fungi belonging to the sections Sphceropsidece, Melan- 

 coniecz, and Hyphomycetes, I have met with several forms that differ 

 from all described in Saccardo's great work, the Sylloge Fungorum, 

 and in the other works on Fungi that I have been able to consult. 

 I therefore venture to regard them as unrecorded, and to name 

 and describe them as new. It is true that there are very strong 

 reasons in favour of the belief that the "species" in the three 

 groups are not true species, but are only stages in the development 

 of other forms, of which the larger number, when mature, must be 

 referred to the Pyreno??iycetes. It is also more than probable that 

 in many cases one or more "species " of Hypho7tiycetes may belong 

 to the same cycles of development as certain " species " of Mela?i- 

 coniece and of Sphceropsidecz, with which they are usually more or 

 less closely associated ; and there are probably similar relation- 

 ships within the limits of the latter groups. Yet, while due weight 

 is assigned to such considerations, and also to the disadvantage of 

 burdening Mycology with synonyms, so very little is as yet known 

 with accuracy regarding the mature forms to which these imperfect 

 fungi belong, that any attempts at uniting them must at present be 

 largely conjectural. Premature attempts to do so must do harm, 

 if the nomenclature is to be fixed by them, since the result may be 

 to perpetuate error. It seems a safer course to treat these im- 

 perfect forms as provisional species, when they present character- 

 istics of a definite kind, bearing in mind that they must be 



