M. C. COOKE ON NETTLE STEMS AND THEIR MICRO-FUNGI. 77 



making its appearance on stems of nettles that Persoon described 

 it under the name of Peziza urticce. When fresh there is a pruinose, 

 or frosted character about the margin of the cup. 



It is quite probable that other species besides those now enu- 

 merated may be found growing on such a good-natured host as old 

 nettles -seem to be. Of later years a number of species of the old 

 genus Peziza have been removed and constituted a new genus, 

 under the name of Helotimn, chiefly on account of the disc being 

 always open, and often convex, as well as some minor distinctions. 

 One species of Helotium occurs on nettle stems, as well as some 

 other herbaceous plants ; it is Helotium herharum. The smooth 

 waxy cups are whitish with a tinge of ochre, and flattened, or a 

 little convex ; the stem is very short, so as not to raise the margin 

 of the cup above the surface of the stems. The sporidia are long 

 and narrow, blunt at the ends, sometimes straight, and sometimes 

 curved, with occasional indications of three transverse septa, which 

 may possibly be spurious. 



There are to be found on the same old nettle stems a group of 

 fungi, partaking of such general features in common that we may 

 call them the Xettle Spha?rias. The distinguishing mark of this 

 group is that the sporidia are contained in asci, which are enclosed 

 in a more or less carbonaceous peritheciiim. Reducing this de- 

 scription to more common-place language, it may be said that the 

 whole fungus consists of a blackish receptacle, somewhat like a 

 "water-bottle in shape, with a nearly globose body and rather short 

 neck. This bottle is sometimes imbedded and sometimes exposed ; 

 sometimes single and sometimes in groups or clusters, or even in 

 confluent masses. The interior of these little bodies contains 

 something very like a minute drop of gelatine composed of long 

 naiTow bags of transparent membrane called asci, each of which 

 encloses, when mature, about eight smaller bodies of the nature of 

 seeds, termed sporidia. Mixed with the asci are long, slender, 

 hair-like, colourless filaments, considered by some as abortive asci, 

 but which are termed paraphyses. Such are the Spha?rias. There 

 are several species of them found on old nettle stems, and the most 

 important of them will be briefly noticed. First, and commonest, 

 is the gregarious species found near the bottom of almost e\rery 

 old nettle stem that is plucked up. Shining black conical flasks, 

 with a flattened base, collected together by scores, throw off the 

 cuticle and become exposed as they approach maturity. Examined 



