234 CURREY—MYCOLOGICAL NOTES. 
Spheria Spartii, Nees, ‘Fr. Syst. Myc., uu, p. 124.— 
The mention of the inner membrane of the ascus leads me 
to notice an instance of extreme elasticity in this membrane, 
which I have seen in Sph. Spartii, Nees. This species 
(which, by the way, is identical with S. elongata, Fr.) has 
oblong or elliptical multicellular sporidia, of a dark yellowish- 
brown colour. Fig. 18 a@ represents the ordinary state of 
an ascus, with the eight contained sporidia. Fig. 18 6 
shows an ascus of the same species in which the outer mem- 
brane has been ruptured at the point (x), and an exit has thus 
been afforded for the inner membrane, which has not, as I 
think is usually the case, itself burst in the act of egress. 
It will be seen, by referring to the figure, that the length of 
the expanded inner membrane is at least twice that of the 
outer one, whilst the breadth of each is the same. One of 
the sporidia remains imprisoned at the base of the ascus, the 
rest having been carried upwards by the escape of the inner 
membrane. An account of the elasticity of the inner mem- 
brane of the ascus in Spheria Scirpi is given by Pringsheim, in 
the first volume of the ‘Jahrbiicher fiir wissenschaftliche 
Botanik,’ but I cannot help thinking that his observations 
require confirmation. 
Phlebia mesenterica, Dicks.—M. Tulasne, in his paper on 
the ‘Tremellini,’ published in the ‘Ann. des Sciences’ for 
1853, mentions that he has observed the parenchyma of Nema- 
telia nucleata to contain a number of calcareous concretions 
of a round, ovoid, flattened, or irregular shape. These con- 
cretions were very large, being about the size of a cabbage- 
seed. He noticed, moreover, in 7remella recisa, Dittm., both 
on its surface and in its substance, a vast quantity of very 
short linear crystals. I do not know whether these bodies 
have been observed in other fungi, but I am able to state 
that raphides occur also in Phlebia mesenterica, Dicks. I 
have found the hymenium of the latter plant covered with a 
mass of crystalline bodies intermixed with the spores of the 
fungus. The crystals were quite microscopic, requiring a 
power of 200 diameters to exhibit them with any clearness. 
Some appeared to be in the form of octahedrons, and others 
of dodecahedrons. M. Tulasne speaks of the raphides of 
Nematelia nucleata beg brought to the surface and exposed 
by the gradual decay of the tissue, but I do not understand 
him to mean that their number increased with the decom- 
position of the plant. I have seen, however, an instance in 
a pheenogamic plant (a species of Myriophyllum), where the 
raphides increased in number prodigiously as the tissue de- 
