1896.] M'Weknky. — Fungi from Brackenstown^ Co. Dublin. 9 



We are now amongst the Mould-fungi, Hyphomycetes, and 

 the very first we come to, Oospora Crustacea, is only placed here 

 provisionally, as the specimen does not quite agree with the 

 description. It formed bright red patches the size of a pin's 

 head on some old rotting cloth which I picked up and put in 

 a bottle. The spots were not there when the specimen was 

 collected, but developed whilst the contents of the bottle were 

 awaiting examination. Several other strange organisms there 

 were on this same old cloth, which I could not identify and 

 whose development, from want of time, I had to leave untraced. 

 Bactridium flavum — a new Irish record — puzzled me for long, 

 and I had to appeal to the superior knowledge of my friend, 

 Mr. Massee, of Kew, before finding a place for it. It has the 

 largest spores of any fungus I have ever seen — about ^V-ii^^^l^ 

 long, club-shaped, and divided by partitions into compart- 

 ments. The fungus forms little yellow dots on rotten wood, 

 and seems to be a speciality of this locality, for several 

 members brought me specimens, including Mr. Jameson, 

 who found it most abundantly on a fallen trunk in a swamp. 

 The next species, Mo7iotospora sphcE7Vcephala, is like a tiny 

 round-headed black pin /^ of an inch high. Hundreds of 

 these stand up stiffly from the piece of rotten bark which they 

 cover like bristles. 



The moulds finished, we pass, with Erysiphe, over into the 

 Ascomycetes — fungi that produce their spores in little sacs 

 called asci. The species first mentioned, together with its ally 

 the Fhyllacti7iia, collected on Hazel by Mr. Jennings, are good 

 examples of those forms that grow parasitically on green 

 plants, and are called mildews. We hardly sympathize with 

 a strong coarse weed like the Hog- weed {Heracleuni) when it 

 suffers from this disease ; but many a cottage gardener has 

 good reason to bewail the fate of his late peas when they fall 

 victims to E. Martii, In early summer we see a sort of grey 

 bloom overspreading the leaves. In autumn this is still there 

 but covered with tiny black grains like gunpowder — the fruit 

 of the fungus. These are like little brown spherical boxes, the 

 wall of which is composed of hexagonal plates, and which are 

 fastened on to the leaf by delicate mycelial threads which are 

 often beautifully branched. Inside the boxes are the asci, each 

 containing four to eight spores. The other ascomycetes must 

 not delay us long. Hyynenoscypha and Mollisia are small disc- 



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