Entomogexous Fungi. 419 



COKDYCEPS CLAYITLATA (Schw.) Ellis.* 



One often finds, in moist or shady places, the remains of scale- 

 insects belonging to the genus Lecanium on which are growing 

 the delicate fruiting bodies of a small fungus. These frniting 

 bodies are between two and three millimeters long, and terminate 

 in a more or less conical head about one millimeter in diameter, 

 Y\q. 97. The color is brown or black. These heads are covered 

 with small rounded papillate projections which are the openings 

 •of ilask-like conceptacles containing the reproductive bodies. The 

 scale on which the fruiting bodies are borne is often shrunken so 

 completely by the fungus and partially or wholly replaced by it that 

 it appears as a lenticular base belonging to the fungus. On crush- 

 ing one of these heads, one finds many sacs called asci. Each sac 

 contains eight slender cylindrical spores which are divided by septa 

 into about twelve or fifteen segments. This fungus is found on 

 scales infesting various trees. Schweinitzf found it on black ash, 

 •on Quercus palustris^ and on Q, cocGi7iea. Dr. Peck fonnd iff on 

 Fraxinus sambucifolia. 1 have found it on Acer pennsylvayncum, 

 •on wild chery, on butternut, on juniper affected by Lecanititn 

 Jletcheri and on various species of Quercus. The species was first 

 described by Schweinitz.:}: Berkeley and Broome,§ afterward de- 

 scribed in English form, Cordyceps pistillariaefortnis, which may 

 be the same. Dr. Peckf refers the specimens found by himself to 

 Schweinitz's species. 



On May 13th, 1S95, I found a maple, Acer pennsylvanicwin^ 

 badly infested with a scale-insect, Lecanium sp. Many of the 

 scales appeared abnormally yellow, some approaching bright oi-ange 

 in color. On teasing one apart in water and examining it with a 

 microscope, it was found to be teeming with small, oval or ellip- 

 soidal, hyphal bodies, very closely resembling yeast. Some were 

 almost fusiform. These bodies often contained one septum and 



* Technical description of Cordyceps stage. — Sporophores slender, from 2 to 

 3 mm. long, bearing a conical bead slightly less than 1 nmi. in diameter and 

 somewhat longer than broad. Perithecia sub-immersed and rounded, containing 

 Jusiform, eight-spored asci about 120 microns long (Fig. 11). Spores ten to 

 twelve segmented and from 3 to 3| microns in diameter (Fig. 12). The color is 

 fuliginous tinged with yellowish green. 



t Synopsis of N. A. Fungi, No. 1155. 



t28th, Kept. N. Y. Slate Mus., p. 70. 



$ No. 969, Brit. Fungi. ^ 



