616 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Mellitosporiopsis (nearly allied to Goniothecium). Apothecia sessilia, 

 in mycelio tenuissimo, primitus globoso-clausa, dein urceolata, demum 

 disco rotundo, piano, tenuissirae marginato, excipulo parenchymatice 

 contexto, extus glabra, ceracea ; asci subclavati, crasse tunicati, 

 1-4-spori ; sporidia oblonga, obtusa, plerumque tecta, hyalina, pluri- 

 septata-muriformia, mucore obducta ; paraphyses apice ramosae, con- 

 glutinatse, epithecium formantes ; hypotheciura hyalinum. 



Coccoidea quercicola g. et sp. n. forms, according to P. Hennings,* 

 small black disks on the underside of the leaves of an evergreen oak in 

 Japan. It belongs to the Dothidiacese. 



Parasitic Fungi. — Herr P. Magnus f describes a new species of 

 Phleospora, P. Eryngii, parasitic on Eryngium maritimum. 



Bossellinia radiciperda AJass.J sp. n. is the name given to a parasitic 

 fungus which attacks the roots of apple trees in New Zealand, the 

 mycele of which closely resembles that of Dematoplwra necatrix. 



Mr. A. Howard § traces a disease very destructive to two different 

 species of Tradescantia to a species of Botryosporium, apparently 

 identical with B. diffusum, accompanied by a species of Hormodendron 

 (Cladosporium). 



Herr P. Magnus || gives a full description of the rare Neovossia 

 (Vossia) Molinise, belonging to the Ustilagineae, parasitic on the ovary 

 of Molinia coerulea. 



Stroma of the Sphaeriales.il — From an exhaustive examination of 

 the stroma of the Pyrenomycetes, especially of the Sphaeriales, Herr 

 W.-Ruhland distinguishes the following types:— (1) In its primitive 

 development the stroma is nothing but a massing of mycele caused by 

 the increased nutritive requirements of the crowded peritheces. For 

 this type he proposes the term protoslroma. In a higher stage, the 

 diplostromatic type, a differentiation is established into two layers, an 

 ectostroma and an entostroma. The former is developed immediately 

 beneath the periderm of the branch of the host on which the fungus 

 grows ; the latter occupies the cortical parenchyme. The chief purpose 

 of the former is to burst the periderm ; it frequently also forms conids. 

 In some cases it is partially or entirely thrown off. The entostroma 

 is the origin of the peritheces ; their tubes reaching either only to the 

 inner surface of the ectostroma or growing completely through it. 

 Hence the tissue which surrounds the tubes of the perithece, called by 

 the author the placodium, is derived either from the entostroma or 

 from the ectostroma. The ectostroma is in some cases greatly reduced 

 in size. (2) The highest forms of the SphaBriales, represented by 

 Pseudovalsa, Botryosphseria, and the Xylariaceae, have again a uniform 

 (undifferentiated) stroma, the haplostromatic type, in which the entostroma 

 is greatly reduced, and serves only as a mycele for the nutriment of the 

 ectostroma. The formation of peritheces then takes place in the ecto- 

 stroma. The morphological differentiation of the stroma appears to be 

 the result of the direct influence of the substratum. 



* Engler's Bot. Jahrb., xxviii. (1900) pp. 259-80. 



t Hedwigia, xxxix. (1900) pp. 111-4 (1 pi.). 



% Journ. Bonrd of Agriculture, vii. (1900) pp. 10-6 (1 pi.). 



§ Ann. of Bot., xiv. (1900) pp. 27-38 (2 pis.). 



|| Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges., xviii. (1900) pp. 73-8 (1 pi.). 



Tf Hedwigia, xxxix. (1900) pp. 1-79 (3 pis.). 



