363 



THE GENUS PESTALOZZIA. 

 By the Eev. J. E. VizE, M.A., F.R.M.S., &c. 



No mycologist can deny that according to the standard he sets voluntarily or 

 involuntarily for himself, he prefers some species of the larger fungi to others. 

 Beauty of colour, elegance of growth, or perhaps extreme rarity may cause him to 

 come to the conclusion that he prefers A to B or B to C. So also with those who 

 study the microscopical forms of fungi, we do feel more interested in some species 

 than others. One friend of mine scarcely believed any fungi could approach the 

 order Mucedines, he gloried in a Peronospora or an Oidium. Another satiated 

 himself in the CEcidia, he wanted any number of them. He began with them, 

 worked well at them for two or three years, then stopped, and to the bast of my 

 knowledge ne^er worked at any other fungus. 



Now, to-night, I ask you to hear a little about the genus Pestalozzia, which to 

 my mind is a very pretty and interesting fungus. It is a genus named by Dr. 

 Notaris, and is very appropriately placed under the family Melanconiei. This 

 family has several genera, noted for the fact that from the host plant a black mass, 

 very much like black Japan or olive-black, oozes out. You can make your fingers 

 as black as a sweep's hand if you wish, from Melanconium bicolor (Nees) on birch, 

 or M. marinum (Berk) on walnut, or Steyonosporium cellulosum (Corda) on beech. 

 This black stuff is always worth examining, and especially so when it happens to 

 be Pestalozzia, because it consists of septate brown spores with hyaline portions 

 above and below. The lower part forms the pedicel, the upper part is crested and 

 has appendat;es of different numbers which swell out under water, and then 

 assume an altered position to what they do when dry. You have therefore a 

 brown body as the spore with transparent attachments above and below. 



The number of species of course increases, in common with all other species of 

 fungi. In fact one begins to think that the sooner students of crypotagamic 

 plants begin, the better for them. Cooke's handbook could be considerably 

 enlarged if reprinted. What will Professor Saccardo's Sylloge Fungorum be 

 when complete ? What will be the size and cost of future books if carried out 

 upon his world-wide knowledge, if written 20, 50 years hence ? 



But about the Pestalozzia — there are several of them. America, Africa, Asia, 

 Europe, have all contributed to swell the lists of them. They have been found on 

 various substances — hops, apples, pears, seeds of water-melons, have supplied 

 them. So have junipers, cypresses, oaks, hollies, camellia leaves, ferns such as 

 pteris aquilina, the leaves of cocoa-nut palm, vines, willow, &c. In England, to 

 the best of my knowledge, only five are known, they are Pestalozzia Guepini (Desm), 

 growing on the leaves of camellia plants, by no means difficult to obtain, because 

 the leaf when aflfeoted by the fungus assumes an ivory patch of considerable size, 

 becoming shaded or dirty as it matures, and having in the patch small pustules of 

 the Pestalozzia. 



