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XX.—Synopsis of the Fructification of the Gros Sphæriæ of the Hookerian 
Herbarium. By FREDERICK CURREY, Esq., MA., ERS., FL.S. | 
Read March 4th, 1858. 
THE title of this paper discloses the source from which the materials for it have been 
derived; and before proceeding with it, I am desirous, in the first place, to record my 
great obligations to Sir William and Dr. Hooker, through whose kindness and liberality 
I have been enabled to carry out those detailed examinations, the results of which, so far 
as they are completed, are embodied in the following pages. 
Amongst the numberless treasures of the unrivalled Hookerian herbarium is a large : 
collection of fungi belonging to the genus Sphæria. This genus, as originally limited, is 
the most extensive in the fungal alliance. i 
Its magnitude may be inferred from the fact, that in the second volume of Fries’s 
‘Systema Mycologicum,’ published thirty-five years ago, no less than 528 species are 
described; and since that time vast numbers of new species haye been added, which are 
to be found in Fries’s * Elenchus Fungorum ;’ in the papers published from time to time in | 
. the ‘Annales des Sciences Naturelles,’ by M. Desmazidres; in the ‘Sylloge Plantarum 
Cryptogamarum’ of Dr. Montagne; in the * Notices of British Fungi,” by Messrs. Berkeley 
and Broome, contained in the different volumes of the * Annals of Natural History ;’ in 
the *Micromycetes Italici’ of De Notaris, and in other scattered and less accessible 
sources of information. 
In so extensive a genus it will necessarily follow that, for the correct determination of 
. Species, many aids must be necessary; and accordingly in the * Systema Mycologicum ’ 
the genus is broken up into two great divisions, viz. the ** Composite,” in which the 
perithecia are united by a common stroma ; and the * Simplices," in which the perithecia 
are solitary. These divisions again are separated into sections, and the sections into sub- 
sections, the details of which, so far as relates to the Composite, which are the subject of 
the present paper, will be given hereafter. — e oae 
These details are necessary, because in the Hookerian herbarium the Spherie are 
arranged in accordance with the ‘Systema Mycologicum ;’ but it should ‘be observed that 
in his subsequent work, the ‘Summa Vegetabilium Scandinavie,’ published in 1849, 
Professor Fries has abandoned his former arrangement, and formed or adopted several 
new genera instead of the subdivisions of the ‘ Systema Mycologicum.’ These new genera 
have been generally adopted by Continental mycologists ; and there is an evident tendency 
to increase their number. The present, however, is an epoch of transition in the classi- 
fication of fungi, as may be inferred from the fact that within the last year two rearrange- 
ments of the family have been proposed—one by Dr. Bail in Germany, the other by Mr. 
Henfrey in this country. Neither of these authors professes to enter into minute details : 
but their systems, as far as they go, have very little in common; and the latter of them is 
