246 MOULDS llliFKRRKl) liY AUTHOBS TO rUMAGO. 



US, not the species which he communicated to Fries. It is quite 

 evident from the account in the Systema Mycologicum that 

 Fries did not understand the structure of the species sent to him 

 by Schweinitz, nor hideed iloes his description agree with the 

 characters assigned by liim to Eschweiler's genus Gliotrichum. 

 The genus, however, itself cannot stand, as it appears, from an 

 authentic specimen communicated by Dr. Montague, that it is 

 in trutli an Alga, and not different from Calothrix. A very 

 closely allied species from Assam on twigs and leaves of a Scepa 

 was at once pronounced by Mr. Thwaites, perhaps the very best 

 authority on such a question, to be certainly a Calothrix. 



Turpin figured a species of Persoon's section Pohjchceton in a 

 treatise on vegetable nosology in Mem. de Sav. Etrang., torn, 

 vi. p. 236, tab. 2, without characters, indeed, or observations, 

 but showing very clearly that it had no affinity with the conunon 

 Fmnago. Of this, as we believe, we have a specimen from Dr. 

 Leveille. We have indeed received from Dr. Montague a species 

 supposed to be identical with Fmnago citri, Pers., belonging to 

 the same category as those of his first section ; but it is probable 

 that Persoon had also in his eye the species figured by Turpin, 

 who gives us no information as to its origin. Dr. Harvey, about 

 four years since, communicated a curious fungus on laurel-leaves 

 under the name of 3Iicroxiphium Footii, agreeing in general 

 structure with the plant of Turpin. At present the true fruit has 

 not been discovered, though the species has proved to be common 

 on the leaves of various evergreens, and is found occasionally on 

 those of deciduous plants and even of herbs. Persoon, indeed, had 

 before found the same thing on beech. It is his Fumago fagi. 



No notice oi Fumago, Pers., much less of the peculiar species 

 Avith which we are occupied, is to be found eitiier in the alpha- 

 betical arrangement of D'Orbigny's ' Dictionnaire,' or Leveille's 

 article ' Mycologie,' as far as we can perceive ; nor in Mougeot's 

 copious list in the statistic account of the department of Vosges, 

 is there any new information. 



The affinity of these curious productions to Scorias was at 

 once evident, though that genus was not properly understood by 

 Fries, who founded it ; nor, indeed, could we boast ourselves of 

 anything like complete information. Neither in the species of 

 Persoon's section Pohjchceton, nor in Scorias, had we discovered 

 the true fruit, though we had a more correct notion of the 

 general structure of these bodies than existed in books, and were 

 therefore desirous of laying such information as we did possess, 

 respecting a very interesting group, before the public. Matters 

 were in this position when tiie casual communication of a new 

 genus which Dr. Montague had lately discovered in a plant found 

 by M. Durieu near Paris, made without any knowledge of our 



