78 ON TWO MINUTE FUNGI. 



VI On two Minute Fungi belonging to the Division 



Hyphomycetes. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., 

 F.L.S. 



[With a Figure.'] 

 (Tab. I. B. C.) 

 We have every day fresh proof of the little dependance 

 which can be placed upon a mere superficial examination 

 of the objects which come under the attention of the Natu- 

 ralist. Habits and forms the most similar, belong often to 

 productions of a perfectly different structure, and it is this 

 circumstance amongst others, which makes it so difficult to 

 ascertain accurately the species intended by many of the 

 earlier writers. This is especially the case with many of 

 Tode's species, though, for the state of Mycology at the time 

 in which he wrote, we cannot refuse him a very high degree oi 

 merit. The two Fungi of which I propose now to give a 

 short description, resemble each other so exactly, that either 

 might be referred to Hydrophora minima^ Tode, but nothing 

 can be much more different than their structure. The one I 

 shall not assume, however, to be that species, though it is 

 hardly probable that there should be a third possessing so 

 nearly the same external attributes, and at the same time the 

 structure of the mucoroid group. Of the other, the charac- 

 ters are so curious, that there cannot be the slightest hesita- 

 tion in proposing a new genera for its reception. 



Hydrophora tenerrima (n. s.) ; sparsa, minima, tota alba, 

 stipite sursum flexuoso, apice clavato ; capitulo columelHs 

 globosis. 



Scarcely visible to the naked eye, and when examined with 

 a good pocket lens exhibiting nothing more than a short very 

 slender white thread with a watery colourless globule seated on 

 its apex. Under a high magnifier, the stem is found to be a 

 little flexuous above, and to end in a clavate swelling beyond 

 which is the globose columella, from the base of which is 

 deflected all round over the apex of the stem a delicate fril' 

 which at first formed a portion of the pendulum, and by its 



