270 CURREY, ON THE REPRODUCTIVE 



both of these latter bodies are the produce of the same con- 

 ceptacle or case. Can it be that the cellular processes above 

 mentioned (such of them at least as are not septate) are youn^ 

 asci, to be fertilized by the action of the spermatia ? This 

 is a mere speculation, but it is not an impossibility. 



The spermatia of S. complanata are elliptical, about l-4300th • 

 of an inch long, with an indistinct sporidiolum at each end. 



3. SphcBria sinopica; Fr-ies, Elenchus Fungorum, vol. ii., 

 p. 81. This Sphceria, one of the Ccespitosce, grows in tufts 

 upon a stroma which is not always perceptible, and which 

 Fries considers to be identical with Tuhercularia sarmentorum. 

 If this be so, the spores of this latter fungus must be looked 

 upon as the conidia of the Sphceria, in the same manner as 

 the spores of Tuhercularia vulgaris are considered to be the 

 conidia of Sphferia cinnabarina. The sporidia of Sphcerid 

 sinopica are elliptical, uniseptate, and slightly constricted at 

 the septum. They frequently have a sporidiolum in each 

 partition. Besides these normal sporidia, I have found in 

 many plants of S. sinopica an immense mass of minute 

 bodies, which I do not hesitate to consider as spermatia. 

 These bodies are excessively minute, elliptical or sub-cylin- 

 drical, many of them not exceeding l-6500th of an inch in 

 length, and endowed with molecular motion. In most of the 

 plants which I examined, these spermatia occurred in conjunc- 

 tion with the regular sporidia, but some specimens contained 

 spermatia alone. In these latter specimens the perithecia were 

 rather of a pyriform shape, not depressed as is the case with 

 the perfect perithecia of S. sinopica. This fact is precisely 

 analogous to what occurs in S. complanata, where the per- 

 fect perithecia are, as we have seen, flattened or collapsed, 

 whilst the spermogonia are swollen and shaped like a dome. 

 The spermatia of S. sinopica appear to be born upon fine, 

 simple, densely-crowded filaments, which line the cavity of 

 the spermatiferous perithecia. This Sphceria, it will be seen, 

 affords another instance, in which it is clear that what might 

 be called the spermogonium is, in fact, the true thecasporous 

 perithecium of which the spermatia are the primary produce, 

 and the asci and sporidia a subsequent fructification, whether 

 produced or not by the fertilizing influence of the spermatia 

 time will probably show.* 



* In the ' Annals of Natural History' for June, 1854, Messrs. Berkeley 

 and Broome have described, as a new species, a Sphceria to which they 

 have given the name of Sphceria {Nectria) inaurata. It is stated to have 

 been found near Bath by Mr. Broome, and at Shooter's Hill by myself ; 

 but there has been some mistake. The Sphana on holly which I found 

 at Shooter's Hill, and of which I sent specimens to Mr. Berkeley, is 

 certainly SpJutria smopira ; at least the plants which T retained have not 



