North Anuritau Helicospor(V. 39 



NORTH AMIvRICAN HKIJCOSPORyB. 



BV A. P. MOROAN. 



The Helicosporic is a section of the families of Hyphoiny- 

 cetous fungi, established by Saccardo, under which to arrange 

 such genera, with their species, as are furnished with elon- 

 gated spores that are spirally coiled. In my search for speci- 

 mens of Hyphomycetes, a large part of the examples I have 

 met with belong to this section, and the different forms seem 

 well nigh endless. In my endeavor to arrange the species, I 

 have found it impossible to separate them into genera by the 

 characters of the hyphcC. But in the critical examination of 

 great numbers of specimens, the observer soon becomes im- 

 pressed with three t3'pes of spores ; in the first the spores are 

 long, slender, and flexible when wet, very sensitive to the 

 influence of moisture ; in the second and third, the spores 

 maintain a rigid, fixed coil, which in the second is flat, and in 

 the third is an oblong or ellipsoidal body. In the following 

 arrangement, I have not been able to present all the species 

 that have been reported in North America, but only those of 

 which I possess abundant material for critical examination ; 

 most of these have been found living and growing by myself; 

 the few species described from dried specimens are credited 

 to the persons from whom they were received. 



HELICOSPOR.E. vSacc. 



Hyphomycetous fungi, with elongated spores spiralh' coiled. 



I. Hyphae and spores not involved in mucus. {Mucedinece 

 and DematiecB.) 



Genus I. — Hei.icomvces, Link. 



Hj'phie creeping, septate, branched, bearing the spores on 

 minute lateral teeth or at the apex of short lateral branches. 

 Spores long, filiform or linear, hyaline, loosely coiled into an 

 irregular or flat spiral. 



The spores in this genus are very susceptible to the action 

 of moisture. 



