and some other Grasses. 471 
respecting it will now be untenable, and it will be requisite to correct also the 
botanical relations of this body, in order to assign to its assumed cause a po- 
sition amongst the lowest of the divisions of Fungi. 
On comparing the characters of the minute parasite of the ergot with those 
of British and foreign genera to which it is allied, it has been found so unlike 
any of them, as at present constituted, as to deserve being made a new 
genus, to which I have given the title of Ergotwtia* ; and after repeated exa- 
minations of the Rye and other grasses, I have not hitherto found any material 
difference in its organization or characters to warrant the making of those be- 
longing to different grasses into different species ; therefore I adopt the specific 
term abortifacienst for the fungus found on the rye, and believe those on other 
ergotized grasses to be of the same species, when the ergots are of a similar 
character. : 
This minute plant, from its structure and habit, will be classed among the 
Fungi, and placed in the suborder Coniomycetes of Fries, and in the tribe Mu- 
cedines, or in Berkeley's arrangement of British Fungi in the tribe Sporidesmiei, 
which comprehends those genera which have their “ sporidia chained together 
into flocci at length free." 
The British genera of this tribe are three, — Aregma, Torula, and Spilocwa ; 
the first of which has sporidia opaque and pedunculated, whilst in the present 
plant they are transparent, and without peduncles; the second differs by 
having its sporidia filled with a grumous mass, whilst the plant mater consider- 
ation has one, two, or three well-defined granules in their interior; and the 
last does not show the sporidia arranged in moniliform filaments. 
The characters by which the plant may be recognised are the following :— 
Ergotetia. Sporidia elliptical, moniliform, finally separating, transparent, 
and containing seldom more than one, two, or three well-defined (greenish) 
granules. ; 
E. abortifaciens. (Characters as above.) Vide Tas. XXXIII. B. fig. 3—11. 
ivati Pharm. Lond. 1836), and airía, origo. 
à Ps g a E the specific name used was abortans, which was 
t When this paper was read before the Society, edis ros ronem 
intended to apply directly to the fungus destroying me germinating power pé the enne = : aed 
to the more remarkable properties of the ergot. This term, however, is not gramm : 
suggestion of J. Pereira, Esq., the present one has been substituted. 
VOL. XVIII. 239 
