THE JOURNAL OF MICROSCOPY 



AND >' 



NATURAL SCIENCE: 



the journal of 



The Postal Microscopical Society. 



JULY, 1885. 



C\>6topu9, or Mbite 1Ru6t* 



By George Norman, M.R.C.S., F.R.M.S., &c. 



Plates 15, 16. 



YSTOPUS is a fungus parasitic on living plants, 

 especially Crucifers, and is placed by our 

 English mycologists in association with numerous 

 well-known parasitic fungi, such as Ustilago, Uredo, 

 Uromyces, Coleosporiuin^ etc., in the order Caeoma- 

 cei, family Coniomycetes. The characteristics of 

 this family, according to Berkeley, are : — -" Spores, 

 either solitary or concatenate, produced on the tips 

 of generally short threads, which are either naked 

 or contained in a perithecium, rarely compacted into a gelatinous 

 mass." Berkeley also says that this family is distinguished by the 

 vast predominance of the reproductive bodies over the rest of the 

 plant, if not in size, at least in abundance; and from the ease with 

 which in general they fall from the point of attachment, in conse- 

 quence of which, as the name implies, they have a dusty appear- 

 ance. Cooke's definition of the order, Cceomacei^ is simply 

 " Parasitic on living plants ; peridium absent ; spores, of one or 

 two orders, simple." 



VOL, IV, I, 



