20 MICROSCOPIC FUNGI. 



examining many of them in different states, I at 

 length found a small maggot in some of the 

 younger spots, so that the globules are probably 

 its excrement, and the fibres, the woody fibres of 

 the plant unfit for its food." We now-a-days smile 

 at such simple and singular conjectures. It affords 

 evidence of the manner in which the speculations of 

 one generation become follies in the next. 



Only two species of cluster-cups are described in 

 Withering's Flora under the genus Ly coper don : 

 one of these is now called JEcidium compo sit arum, 

 and is found on various composite plants ; the other 

 includes the species found on the wood-anemone 

 and that on the moschatel, and also probably a 

 species of Puccinia on the wood-betony. 



To render this chapter more complete, though of 

 less importance to the microscopist, we may allude 

 to the other two genera comprised within this order. 

 Ptri&ermium is the name of one genus which 

 contains three British species found on the leaves 

 and young shoots of coniferous trees. In this 

 genus the peridium bursts irregularly, and does not 

 form cups, or horns, or fringed vessels. The most 

 common species is found on the needle-shaped 

 leaves of the Scotch fir (plate II. fig. 27), and also 

 on the young twigs, in the latter instance larger 

 and more prominent than in the former. The 

 elongated peridia burst irregularly at their apice? 

 without forming teeth (fig. 28). 



In the genus Endopliyllum, as its name implies, 



