266 M. C. COOKE, NOTES ON PODISOMA. 



spores are more like those of Podisoma macropus. Tulasne has 

 pointed this out in a note to his memoir on the Trernellini, wherein 

 he says, " it would rather constitute a species distinct both from 

 P. fuscwn, Corda, and P. juniperi-communis. Fr. The species 

 examined and figured by Gasparrini was found on another species 

 of juniper (Juniperus Phoenicia). 



A species of Podisoma is recorded by Opiz under the name of 

 Podisoma calluna?,* as having being found in the neighbourhood of 

 Prague, but of this we have no knowledge, nor of its having been 

 met with by any other mycologist. We can only refer to it as an 

 uncertain species. Podisoma Bulliardi (Bonorden) is not a Podi- 

 soma, but allied to Coryneum. 



Podisoma foliicolum is the name given by Berkeley,! in the Eng- 

 lish Flora, to a parasite on the leaves of the Savin {Juniperus Sabince.) 

 It makes its appearance in spring, on the living leaves, as small, subel- 

 liptic, pitchy black excrescences, not larger than the head of a pin. 

 Internally it consists of a rather tremelloid stroma, from which 

 radiate long hyaline peduncles, surmounted each by an elliptical, or 

 sub-fusiform spore, of a dull brown colour when mature, and divided 

 by three, rarely five, transverse septa (pi. xix., fig. 4). In the descrip- 

 tion cited, the spores are said to be "very obtuse;" this is by no means 

 constantly the* case, as, in the specimen before us, the majority of 

 the spores are acute at both extremities, so that the spore is more 

 accurately described as broadly-lanceolate than elliptic. The be- 

 haviour of these masses, when placed in a drop of water under the 

 microscope, is very different from those of Podisoma. The spores 

 do not adhere with any tenacity to each other, but float over the 

 field quite freely ; in fact, they do not seem to be involved in gela- 

 tine at all, but resemble, in many respects, the spores of Coryneum, 

 to which this plant is certainly more closely related than to Podisoma. 

 FuckelJ has recently transferred it to Hendersonia, a genus with 

 which it has as little affinity as Podisoma, for there is no definite 

 perithecium (one of the essential characters of Hendersonid). The 

 specimens published by Fuckel § are said to be on the leaves of the 

 common juniper (Junip erus- communis J, but there is no appearance 

 of any essential difference. The spores (or protospores) are not 



* Opiz, Seznam rostlin kveteny ceske v. Praze (1852), p. 136. 

 f Engl. Fl. v. part ii., p. 362. Cooke's Handbook, p. 510, No. 1518. 

 j Fuckel, Symbols Mycologicse 1869), p. 391. 

 § Fuckel, Fungi Rbenani, No. 414. 



