OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



II. 



ON SOME NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF 

 LABOULBENIACE^L 



By Roland Thaxter. 



Presented byW. G. Farlow, February 12, 1890. 



Note. — The following is intended as a preliminary communication on Amer- 

 ican Laboulbeniaccae, which it is ray purpose to supplement as soon as practi- 

 cable by a more extended account, to form the second part of a proposed 

 monograph of Entomogenous Plants, of which the first, on tlie Entomophtho- 

 rese of the United States,* has already appeared. Illustrations of the new 

 species described in this paper cannot well be given in the present connection, 

 but will accompany my complete account of the subject when it is published. 



The Laboulbeniaceae constitute a small group of fungi, without close 

 affinities among other known Ascomycetes, the members of which are 

 remarkable both in their structure and development, as well as peculiar 

 for their external parasitism upon insects of several orders. Up to the 

 present time little has been recorded concerning them in this country, 

 and the total number of forms at present known represent only fifteen 

 described species. Of these twelve are European, distributed among 

 five genera: Laboulbenia, Stigmntomyces, Helminthophana, Cliitono- 

 myces, and Hcematomyces. Of the remaining species, two are South 

 American, belonging to the genus Laboulbenia, while the single rep- 

 resentative of the group as yet recorded from this country has been 

 described as Appendicularia entomophila Peck,t a genus, as will be 

 presently noted, synonymous with Siigmatomyces Karsten. 



Our present knowledge of the group rests chiefly upon the writings 

 of Robin, { Karsten, § and Peyritsch, || the first notice of any member 



* Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. IV. No. VI. (1888). 

 t Thirty-eighth Rep. N. Y. State Mus. of Nat. Hist., p. 95, Plate III. figs. 1-4. 

 X Robin, Hist. Nat. d. Veget. Paras, etc., Paris, 1853, p. 622. 

 § Chemismus d. Pflanzenzelle, Wien, 18G9, p. 78. 



II Sitz. d. Kaiserl. Acad. d. Wissensch. Wien, (1871) LXIV Band, 1 Abth., 

 p. 441 ; (1873) LXVIU Band, 1 Abth., p. 227; (1876) LXXII Band, 3 Abth. 



