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A DESCRIPTION OF SOME SPECIES OF THE CENUS 

 ASCOBOLUS NEW TO ENGLAND. 



By JAMES KENNY, Esq. 



ASCOBOLUS (rYPAROBIUS), ARGENTEUS, AND 

 ASCOBOLUS (rTPAROBIUS), WOOLHOPENSIS. 

 I am convinced that the district of the Woolhope Club abounds in new 

 mycetal growths awaiting a discoverer, and the labours of the patient and zealous 

 student who will search for them will not miss an abundant reward. Among 

 the several hundred species which I have collected during the past few weeks, 

 within five or six miles of Hereford, I have had the good luck to stumble upon 

 forms unknown before in Great Britain, in such proportion as amply to bear out 

 this view, and I have thought it might not be uninteresting to the Club to hear 

 a description of two or three species the Genus Ascobolus which I ha\e met with 

 lately in Herefordshire. These are the first specimensof atype not hitherto seen out 

 of France. It is characterised by the possession of reproductive organs which con- 

 tain numerous spores, in place of the almost universally prevalent number of eight. 

 Five years ago M. Boudier wrote for the Annates dcs Sciences Naturelles an ele- 

 gant monogram of this Genus Ascobolus. He divided it into several groups, one 

 of which he called Kyparobius— the filth- dweller— and he described it as possess- 

 ing the peculiarity of spore vessels holding numerous spores, and for the first 

 time he gave distinct names to five species. It is true that another of his 

 sections contains a species, sexdecemspores, which is known in this country, as 

 you will see in Mr. Cooke's handbook, but the many spored (that is 64 or 128 

 spored) Ryparobii have not been before described as of English growth. 



I need not presume that the large and beautiful genus Peziza is unknown to 

 any here. No one who takes up one of the bolder and finer species, Badia or 

 Aurantia, for instance, and witnesses for the first time the little puffs of cloudy 

 dust it emits at short intervals, will fail to be struck by the phenomenon. The 

 upper and outer surface of the plant consists of a thick layer of elongated, some- 

 what tubular cells, arranged side by side lengthways, and closed below. Each 

 cell or ascus as a rounded membranous top, which alone shuts off from the 

 atmosphere the eight spores it is its function to elaborate. These asci ripen their 

 contents only in succession, so that there are always quantities of sporidia in aU 

 stages of development. The younger and still swelling asci overcome (perhaps in 

 periodical fits of excitement, perhaps through changes of hygrometric condition, 

 perhaps by the help of a sudden jerk along with their increasing tension), the 

 rigid arches of the dry and now partially empty asci, with which they are inter 

 mixed. The walls of these riper asci, in their collapse, force out the minute 



