1896. SOME NEW BOOKS. 133 



along was specially directed to the Protobasidiomycetes, under which 

 Brefeld has classified all those lower forms of the Basidiomycetes 

 that have divided basidia. The Autobasidiomycetes with undivided 

 basidia include nearly all the larger fungi, the mushrooms, toadstools, 

 etc., and are to form the subject of another paper. 



The Protobasidiomycetes have been further subdivided by 

 Brefeld into two groups, distinguished by the form of the basidium. 

 The Auriculariacese, brown, leathery, wrinkled fungi, popularly 

 known as " Jew's ears," represent one type : they have long upright 

 basidia divided by transverse walls into four cells, and each cell gives 

 rise to one spore. In the other group, the basidium is more round or 

 egg-shaped, and it is divided lengthwise, like the quarters of an orange. 

 This type prevails in the Tremellineae, very slimy, gelatinous fungi 

 that grow mostly on decaying wood ; there is a long outgrowth or 

 sterigma from the apex of each cell, on the top of which the spore is 

 borne. The reason for this form of fruiting is very apparent, as the 

 spores are thus lifted above the gelatinous covering and their 

 dissemination is secured. 



One of Moller's most interesting discoveries was that of 

 Sirobasidium brefeldianum, which forms a transition from one to the 

 other of these types. The fungus occurs on dead branches, and looks 

 like little white pearls or drops of water. The basidium is an oval- 

 shaped cell, which has only one somewhat slanting division and two 

 spores without sterigmata, one borne near the apex of the basidium, 

 the other lower down. After the spores are ripe, the basidium 

 shrivels up and the cell immediately beneath develops in turn as a 

 basidium, and thus a row of such shrivelled, empty cells could often 

 be seen surmounting a spore-bearing basidium. A very similar fungus 

 had been found in Ecuador by Lagerheim, and was described by 

 Patouillard in the Journal de Botunique for 1892, under the generic 

 name Sirobasidium. In the Ecuador plant, the basidium was divided 

 into four cells by longitudinal walls, and the four spores were borne 

 at the apex, also without sterigmata. Here, too, the succession of 

 basidia in a long row was similar to that of Sirobasidium bvefeldianum, 

 the Brazilian species. 



In the preface to this volume, Dr. Moller quotes, with entire 

 approval, Brefeld's statement that to classify and name fungi belonging 

 to the Protobasidiomycetes, it is necessary to rely chiefly, if not alone, 

 on spore culture and development. It was surely rash, then, on Moller's 

 part, to accept the work of Patouillard, who merely described the 

 fungus as he found it. Life is scarcely long enough to watch how the 

 spores grow in every fungus that we may desire to classify. Moller 

 himself has not found such knowledge essential, or he would have laid 

 aside Patouillard' s Sirobasidium with a query. 



The researches of Van Tieghem, and subsequently of Brefeld, 

 have resulted in placing the Uredineae among the Basidiomycetes near 

 to the Auriculariaceae, and therefore among the Protobasidiomycetes. 

 The Uredineae are all parasites, and form the " rusts " that work such 

 havoc among cereal crops. The brown and black streaks and patches 

 that cover the grasses in autumn are formed of innumerable little two- 

 celled brown spores, which are scattered by the wind, and are capable 

 of resisting extreme cold. In spring, they germinate and reproduce 

 the fungus. It is at the stage of germination that the fungus harks 

 back to its kindred, and the germinating filament is a true basidium 

 exactly like that of Auricularia. It is divided into four cells which 

 produce the spores, and these in turn grow out into the filaments of 

 the new plant. Dr. Moller does not delay long over this group, but 



