258 MR. F. CURREY ON THE FRUCTIFICATION OF COMPOUND SPHÆRIÆ. 
quite subversive of existing notions. Whether either of them will have any permanence, 
it would be premature to speculate, especially in the face of Dr. de Bary’s observations on 
the ascigerous fructification of Agaricus melleus, lately communicated to the meeting of 
German naturalists at Bonn*. If these observations should be confirmed, it is hardly 
likely that the case of Ag. melleus should be a solitary one; and if ascigerous fructification 
should be proved to exist in the Agarics generally, one great line of demarcation in the 
classification of fungi, and upon which all systems are more or less founded, will be almost 
obliterated. 
In the tribe of the Pyrenomycetes, to which the genus Sphæria belongs, the limits of 
genera are far from settled: for the researches of Tulasne and others have gone far to 
show that many of the existing genera are only stages of growth or abnormal conditions 
of other well-known plants of the same tribe; and it remains to be seen whether future 
mycologists will confirm the numerous genera into which the original genus Sphæria has 
been split up, or whether their judgment will not eventually favour the adoption of the 
arrangement of the ‘Systema Mycologicum.’ 
However this may be, there is no doubt that many, if not most, of the later genera are 
exceedingly well defined ; and I have therefore thought it advisable in the following de- 
scriptions, whilst adhering to the earlier arrangement as being that in use at Kew, to 
notice in each case the genus to which, according to more recent views, each particular 
plant would belong. 
The present paper is the commencement of an attempt to render the discrimination of 
species in this extensive and intricate genus more certain and easy than it has hitherto 
been, by means of drawings and detailed descriptions of the fructification of each parti- 
cular plant. ; 
It will have been observed by all who have consulted the * Systema Mycologicum’ that 
no notice is taken of the nature of the fruit as distinctive of species: nor could such 
notice be expected; for at the time of the publication of that work, microscopical appli- 
ances were quite insufficient to render the necessary observations inviting, or even feasible. 
~ The * Summa Vegetabilium Scandinaviæ” contains some general allusions to the nature 
of the sporidia ; but detailed descriptions were not within the scope of that work, which 
professes only to be a Syllabus of Scandinavian vegetation. 
For some time past, however, the importance of the fructification as distinctive of 
species has been fully recognized ; and any details of new plants would at the present day 
be considered imperfect which did not afford full descriptions of the fruit. 
Figures of the sporidia of a number of species are to be found in the pages of the 
‘Annales des Sciences Naturelles, in the works of Dr. Montagne, De Notaris and others; 
and the * Notices” in the ‘ Annals of Natural History’ above referred to, and which 
relate to new species discovered in this country, are illustrated by excellent drawings. 
After all, however, the whole mass of the older Species remain, so far as regards ger 
fructification, almost entirely undescribed ; and I have long thought that good service might 
be rendered to Mycology by any botanist who would undertake the description and illus- 
tration of the fruit of any considerable number of these plants. The opportunity jé 
* See Bot. Zeitung, No, 45, 1857. 
