82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



P. Veratri Duby is a genuine Puccinia, and as such antedates the 

 name of Niessl. The present species was described as P. Veratri 

 Clinton in tlie Twenty-seventh Report N. Y. State Mus. 



Nos. 1047 and 1048. As far as my experience goes, the uredo 

 spores of P. Prunorum Lk. are much less common near Cambridge 

 than the teleutospores, but in the Southern States they are common. 



No. 1034. Puccinia curtipes Howe. This species has been sup- 

 posed to be distinct from P. Saxifrages Schlect. in having rather 

 smaller teleutospores, which are covered with spiral strias. In the 

 specimen in Schweiz. Krypt., no. 711, which is named P. Saxifrages 

 Schlect., and quoted as such by Winter in Rabenhorst's Kryptogamen- 

 flora, the spores are distinctly striate, and the measurements are 

 practically the same as in P. curtipes. Assuming, as we must, that 

 the specimen in Schweiz. Krypt. is really P. Saxifragce, I do not see 

 how it is possible to keep P. curtipes distinct. No. 1049, on TiareUa 

 cordifoUa, certainly is not P. Saxifi agce, nor is it the same as the 

 specimen in Herb. Curtis, no. 6146, which is described under the 

 name of P. Tiarellce. B. & C. in Grevillea, Vol. III. p. 53. On this 

 account the name P. spreta Pk. was adopted. 



No. 1051. Puccinia vexans Farlow. A curious and perplexing 

 species. This is not strictly, as the label would imply, a new species, 

 for it has already been described by Peck under the name of Uromy- 

 ces Brandegei in Bot. Gaz., Vol. IV. p. 127. It has been collected in 

 several different localities in the Western States, but is a Puccinia 

 rather than a Uromyces. It cannot, however, be called P. Brande- 

 gei (Pk.) because there is already another species of that name 

 on CorydaUs. I have received specimens from Mr. Brandegee, the 

 original discoverer, and from several other botanists, and find that 

 some of the sori contain two-celled spores, others only one-celled 

 spores, and in other sori both kinds are intimately mixed. The two- 

 celled spores are oval, obtuse at both ends, smooth or somewhat 

 roughened in the upper part, and measure from 30-38^ X 19-24/a. 

 The one-celled spores are dark brown, like the two-celled, obovate, 

 distinctly papillate or roughened in the upper part, and of about the 

 same dimensions as the two-celled, perhaps a trifle smaller. A species 

 in which some of the sori contain only two-celled spores must certainly 

 be held to be a Puccinia, and the perplexing question arises, Are the 

 one-celled spores a unilocular form of teleutospores similar to what is 

 known in P. Cesatii Schr.,or are they the uredo spores of this species? 

 I have not been able to find any other spores which represent the 

 uredo of the species ; and never having seen the unicellular spores in 



