12 



HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



county, overlooked almost entirely by fungologists. 

 The cecidium stage of these fungi does not consist of 

 cluster cups in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 

 for the aecidiospores are not surrounded by peridia, but 

 they are secidiospores none the less, being produced 

 in chains, and not borne singly on the ends of separate 

 mycelial branches as the uredospores are. Last 

 April I found the aecidiospores growing in company 

 {i.e., on the same leaves) with the previous year's 

 teleutospores on a large bush of Rubits fritticosits near 

 King's Lynn, which by reason of the very mild 

 winter still retained the bulk of its foliage. These 



recidiospores are ripe, they in their turn germinate 

 and protrude germ-tubes (fig. 23) which enter the 

 stomata of the bramble leaves and give rise to the 

 uredospores. I was fortunate enough to watch these 

 germinations last April, and would suggest that some 

 of the readers of Science-Gossip might be interested 

 in doing the same next spring. The most striking 

 feature is to observe the orange endochrome pass 

 into the hyaline promycelium from a dark almost 

 black teleutospore. It is obvious that the Decidio- 

 spores are only produced once in the life history of the 

 fungus, so that they are necessarily less frequently 



Fig. 22. — Phragmidium 

 rubi, Pers. 



Fil;. 23. — Phragmidium 

 violaceum, Schultz. 



Fig. 24. — /Ecidiospores of Phragmidium v'wlacatm 

 germinating. 



secidiospores are produced as follows : The last year's 

 teleutospores germinate by throwing out from each 

 segment of the spore a promycelial tube, into which 

 the contents of the spore are passed as orange 

 granules ; in a few hours the promycelium has given 

 off one or more short branches, at the extremities of 

 which the spores are formed. Into these spores all 

 the orange granules collect. These spores soon fall 

 off, and under favourable circumstances, in a few 

 hours germinate by throwing out delicate germ- 

 tubes. If this takes place upon a bramble leaf the 

 germ-tubes bore through the epidermis, enter the leaf, 

 and in due time produce the aecidiospores. When the 



met with than the uredospores, which are to be found 

 all through the summer months. 



For the benefit of those interested, descriptions of 

 these two phragmidia, with their synonyms* are 

 appended. 



Phragmidium rubi, Pers. (Puccinia mucronata, j3. 

 rubi, Pers. Uredo bulbosa,\ Strauss. Phragmidium 

 iiicrassaiitm, var. 2 Link ; P. microsomal, Sacc.) 



I. ^Ecidiospores in heaps," often confluent, elon- 

 gated and following the venation of the leaf, orange- 

 yellow, roundish polygonal, 18 to 22 mk. 



* Rabenhorst's " Kryptogamen Flora," edit. 1881, pp. 230, 231. 



