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XX. — Sijnopsis of the FructiJicaUon of the Compound Sphceriae of the Sookerian 

 Serbarium. By Frederick Currey, Esq., M.A., F.B.S., F.L.S. 



Read Msrcb 4tb, 1858. 



The title of this paper discloses the source from which the materials for it have been 

 derived ; and before proceeding with it, I am desu-ous, in the first place, to record my 

 great obligations to Sir WUliam and Dr. Hooker, through whose kindness and liberality 

 I have been enabled to carry out those detailed examinations, the results of wliich, so far 

 as they are completed, are embodied in the following pages. 



Amongst the numberless treasures of the unrivalled Hookerian herbarium is a large 

 collection of fungi belonging to the genus Sphceria. This genus, as originally linuted, is 

 the most extensive in the fimgal alliance. 



Its magnitude may be inferred from the fact, that in the second volimie of Fries's 

 ' Systema Mycologicum,' published thu-ty-five years ago, no less than 528 species are 

 described ; and since that time vast numbers of new species have been added, which are 

 to be found in Fries's ' Elenchus Fungorum ; ' in the papers published from time to time in 

 the ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles,' by M. Desmazieres ; in the ' Sylloge Plantarum 

 Cryptogamai'um' of Dr. Montague ; in the " Notices of British Fimgi," by Messrs. Berkeley 

 and Broome, contained in the different vokmies of the ' Annals of Natural History ; ' in 

 the ' Micromycetes Italici ' of De Notaris, and in other scattered and less accessible 

 sources of information. 



In so extensive a genus it will necessarily foUow that, for the correct determination of 

 species, many aids must be necessary ; and accordingly in the ' Systema Mycologicvim ' 

 the genus is broken up into two great divisions, viz. the " Compositse," in which the 

 perithecia are united by a common stroma ; and the " SimpUces," in which the perithecia 

 are solitary. These divisions again are separated into sections, and the sections into sub- 

 sections, the details of which, so far as relates to the Compositce, which are the subject of 

 the present paper, will be given hereafter. 



These details are necessary, because in the Hookerian herbarium the SphcericB are 

 arranged in accordance with the ' Systema Mycologicum ; ' but it should be observed that 

 in his subsequent work, the ' Summa VegetabiUum Scandinavife,' published in 1849, 

 Professor Fries has abandoned his former arrangement, and formed or adopted several 

 new genera instead of the subdivisions of the ' Systema Mycologicum.' These new genera 

 have been generally adopted by Continental mycologists ; and there is an evident tendency 

 to increase their number. Tlie present, however, is an epoch of transition in the classi- 

 fication of fungi, as may be inferred from the fact that within the last year two rearrange- 

 ments of the family have been proposed — one by Dr. Bail in Germany, the other by Mr. 

 Henfrey in this countrj'. Neither of these authors professes to enter into minute details : 

 but their systems, as far as they go, have very little in conmion ; and the latter of them is 



