138 



Some Remarkable Moulds. 



By Dr. M. C. Cooke, M.A., A.L.S., &c. 



(Read March 27th, 1885.) 



PLATES IX. & X. 



It may be of some interest to the botanical members if I take 

 this opportunity of placing before them figures and descriptions of 

 some remarkable moulds which have come within my recent ex- 

 perience. It need not be premised that one great difficulty in the 

 determination of these minute and fragile fungi lies in ascertaining 

 the mode of attachment of the spores, whether singly or in chains, 

 whether solitary or in clusters. This applies with strongest force 

 to specimens sent from a distance, or when examined some months 

 after death and dessication. Whenever the spores can be induced 

 to germinate on rice paste, or other suitable matrix, and a cultiva- 

 tion of the mould artificially is successful, this great difficulty 

 vanishes, but it is by no means an easy task to conduct such an 

 artificial cultivation to a successful termination. 



Basidiella sph^erocarpa, Cooke, in " Grevillea" vi. ; 118. 



This is the first mould to which I would refer you. It was found 

 growing in black woolly patches on dead and decayed roots of Glori- 

 osa svperba, from Madras. The roots were packed in a closely- 

 stoppered bottle, in a damp state, and putrefied in that condition. 

 When opened the mould was found on some of the still wet and 

 rotten portions. The structure of this mould was so peculiar, that I 

 felt obliged to.constitute anew, if only a temporary, genus for its re- 

 ception. The larger patches were composed of numerous small tufts 

 or fascicles, of club-shaped brown hyphae, not more than one-tenth 

 of a millemetre in length, the clubs themselves being about -03 m. 

 (or 30 micromillemetres) in thickness above, attenuated to about 5 

 micromill. at the base, where they were attached to the creeping 

 brown mycelium. Each tuft consisted of five or six, sometimes 



