common on decaying Beech. The genus Hypocrea is intermediate 

 between Nectria and Cordyceps, it is generally effused, and 

 horizontal in habit, and more remarkable from the moulds which 

 constitute its early state, or are associated with it, than in its per- 

 fect form. These moulds were considered autonomous species till 

 Tulasne traced them to their true position ; they constitute the 

 genera Botrytis, Verticillium, and others. Hypocrea inclusa B. and 

 Br. is curious from its place of growth. It is parasitic in the flesh of 

 a small traffic, Tuber puberulum B. ; its presence may be detected 

 by a minute, rusty spot not larger than the head of the smallest 

 pin, visible on making a section of the Truffle. 



Another species, nearly related, is not uncommon on grasses ; it 

 surrounds the stalk with a bandlike, yellow stroma, crowded with 

 perithecia. Tulasne has given it the generic name of Epichloe ; 

 it diJ0Fers from Hypocrea in the sporidia being linear and 

 continuous. In habit it resembles the latter. The genus 

 Hypomyces differs from Hypocrea in fruit, and in being generally 

 parasitic on other fungi. In a Monograph of the genus, Mr. 

 Plowright observes that Hypomyces luteo-virens attacks the 

 Agaric on which it is parasitic, at a very early period before it 

 ■ appears above ground, and so distorts it that it is impossible to 

 say to what species it belongs : most commonly the Hypomyces 

 do not attack other fungi till they are in a state of decay. 

 Another species, he says, grows, not on the Agaric itself, but on 

 the ground under, or near, the spot where it has decayed, the 

 decay being the result of the growth of an earlier stage of the 

 Hypomyces ; in other words, the Hypomyces, in its conidial 

 state, first attacks the Host-Fungus, and, by causing its decay, 

 generates the pabulum necessary for the nourishment and perfec- 

 tion of the higher form of fructification. 



The genus Hypomyces is interesting from the various phases 

 through which many of its members pass. As a rule, the 

 ascigerous, or perfect form is more rare, — the conidiiferous state 

 the more common. Hypomyces aureo-nitens Tul. was of striking 



