186 FETCH : 



mass, leaving the tapering ends apparently empty. Vacuola- 

 tion is common both in pycnospores and ascospores (part- 

 spores), but it is not a constant feature in any species. 



The species of Aschersonia parasitic on Aleyiodidae differ 

 from those parasitic on Lecaniidse in having long filamentous 

 paraphyses arising with the basidia from the hymenial layer. 

 This difference has been found to exist in all cases in which 

 the host insect has been determined. The paraphyses are 

 not septate, but in many cases they exhibit light and dark 

 lengths, due apparently to a discontinuous variation in their 

 contents. This was recorded by Webber for Aschersonia 

 Aleyrodis, and I have noted the same thing in Aschersonia 

 ■placenta, A. hypocreoidea, and A. Goldiana, but in no case is 

 it constant. The length of the paraphyses is variable, but 

 the range in each species provides a character by which the 

 species can be separated. 



Association with Insects. 



Webber, in 1894, as the result of his investigations into the 

 fungi and insects on Citrus, was the first to demonstrate that 

 species of the genus Aschersonia were parasitic on insects. 

 He showed that Aschersonia Aleyrodis was parasitic on Aley- 

 rodes citri R. & H., A. turhinata on Ceroplastes- floridensis 

 Comstock, and, judging from his description, A. cuhensis on 

 Lecanium hesperidum L. 



Several years elapsed before Webber's discovery had any 

 influence on the writings of systematic mycologists, Hen- 

 nings, when describing five species of Aschersonia from Java 

 in 1902, noted their association with scale insects, apparently 

 with some astonishment, and wrote that it was a remarkable 

 phenomenon that these fungi generally occurred with various 

 species of Lecanium, to which they bore so great a resemblance 

 in form and colouration that he considered this was to be 

 regarded as an instance of mimicry (Hedwigia, XLI., pp. 145, 

 146). 



Webber had suggested that all species of the genus Ascher- 

 sonia were entomogenous, and that view was supported by 

 Parkin in his paper published in 1906. Parkin recorded eight 

 collections of Aschersonia parasitic on species of Aleyrodes 



