TAXONOMY OF THE PILOBOLIDAE 191 



a large amount of time and patience. The account of those species 

 which I have not seen is of course compiled from the pubhshed 

 sources. 



The drawings of the earlier authors were but free-hand sketches, 

 inaccurate in certain details. For instance, Bolton's figure of 

 Pilobolus roridus (Fig. 98) makes the subsporangial swelling appear 

 nearly twice as broad as it is high (seemingly in an attempt at 

 perspective) ; Zopf and Klein represent the subsporangial swelling 

 of P. Kleinii (their P. crystallinus) as hardly or not at all wider 

 than the sporangium ; van Tieghem makes the same error in his 

 figure of Pilobolus nanus (Fig. 106, p. 212), while in Pilobolus longipes 

 (Fig. 100, p. 203) he draws the spores in the sporangium out of all 

 proportion to the sporangium in which they are enclosed. By 

 future workers pure cultures of each so-called species should be 

 obtained and their special characteristics should be fully illustrated 

 by photographs and carnera-lucida drawings. 



The Historical Account which follows is founded, with many 

 emendations and the necessary later additions, on that given in the 

 Monograph of 1884. 



Historical Account. — The earliest record I have been able to 

 find of a species belonging to Pilobolus is in the works of the famous 

 British botanist, John Ray. In his Historia Plantarum (1688) 

 occurs the following passage which, on account of its importance, 

 shall be quoted in full : — 



"E Catalogo hue tvanfmljfo J nno 1680, quern compojuit eruditi/Ji- 

 mus Vir et conjummati/jimus Botanicus D. Johannes Banifter Plantarum 

 a Jeip/o in Virginia objervatarum. 



" Fungus (ex /tercore equino) capillaceus capitulo rorido, nigro 

 punctulo in Jummitate notato. Ex recenti fimo noctu exoritur cauliculis 

 erectis, vix digitum longis, capillorum injtar tenuibus nee minus denjis 

 /eu confertis. Singuli Cauliculi parvulo globule aqueo coronantur, qui 

 in Jumma Jui macula parva nigra Limacis oculi Jimili in/ignitur." 



The same species of Pilobolus was then mentioned and figured 

 by Plukenet (1691) as ^^ Fungus Virginianus ex /tercore equino 

 capillaceus canus capitulo rorido, nigro punctulo in Jummitate notato, 

 D. Bani/ter." Plukenet did not merely copy what Ray had 



