CURREY, ON REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF FUNGI. 193 



spores of this singular plant consists of four bi, tri, or quadri- 

 septate pointed cones radiating from a common centre, but the 

 axes of which do not lie in the same plane. I have called 

 the rays cones, but this is not strictly correct, inasmuch as 

 they are generally slightly curved like a cow's horn. The 

 spores have been compared to the instrument called croid's- 

 feet, which, wlien thrown on the ground, always present one 

 point upwards, as would manifestly be the case with these 

 spores. In fig. 1, PI. XI., I have represented a spore as seen 

 under a magnifying power of 500 diameters. I would ob- 

 serve, that although the normal number of rays is four, I have 

 met with spores in which two of the rays have failed, thereby 

 producing the appearance shown in fig. 2, which represents 

 one of these abnormal spores magnified 350 diameters. Spores 

 of this latter kind were tolerably numerous in one or two of 

 the specimens which I lately examined, and upon which the 

 observations to which this paper relates were made. The 

 threads of the mycelium are of a brownish colour, sometimes 

 septate, and not unfrerjuently branched. In the specimens 

 just mentioned these threads were so closely packed as to 

 present somewhat the appearance of a membrane composed 

 of elongated cells, but nevertheless, upon close inspection, it 

 might be seen that the threads were not actually adherent 

 to one another. The spores of Asterosporium, like those 

 of the Stilbosporce in general, eventually produce a fissure in 

 the bark under which they grow, and are ejected from beneath 

 the epidermis ; if the atmosphere be moist they have the 

 appearance of tubercles of black jelly covering the twigs 

 upon which the plant grows, but which tubercles, in hot 

 weather, cease to be gelatinous, and become hard and dry. 



I must now direct attention to a plant which has hitherto 

 been considered quite distinct from Aster ospoinum, and which 

 bears the somewhat uneuphonious, but withal expressive, 

 name of Myriocephalum botryosporum. This fungus, which 

 has all the characters of a Stilbospora, was placed by M. Mon- 

 tague in that genus, but has borne a variety of names. It is 

 the Cheirospora of Fries, the Rhabdosporium of Chevallier, the 

 Hyperomyxa of Corda, the Botryosporium of Schweinitz, and 

 the Myriocephaliim of De Notaris, and Fresenius. It may be 

 recognized under the microscope at a glance, by the peculiar 

 grape-like bunches of green spores borne on the apices of long 

 slender filaments, which are sometimes, though not generally, 

 branched. Fig. 3 represents the upper part of one of these 

 filaments terminating in a bunch of spores ; and fig. 4 repre- 

 sents a similar bunch of spores, in which, as I have observed 

 to be the case in many instances, the terminal spore, and 



