TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 7' 



pants, and others those of Diplodia. As long as the naked spores occurred only in 

 specimens in which the disc was not expanded, this caused no surprise, as nothing is 

 more common than to find Sphasrise and Diplodiae on the same matrix, -which cannot 

 be distinguished externally ; but further examination exhibited the proper fructifi- 

 cation of Diplodia in specimens with an open disc, a character quite at variance with 

 that of the genus, and then the same hymenium was detected producing rather large 

 uniseptate naked spores, and broad elongated asci exceeding them many times in 

 length, and containing a multitude of minute oblong sporidia. Prof. Fries, in a letter 

 lately received, informs us that he has observed a similar fact in '• Hendersonia Sy- 

 ringes." The circumstance of the constant or occasional occurrence of Uredo and 

 Puccinia, Uredo and Aregma, Uredo and Xeiiodochus, or two species of tlie same 

 genus in the same spot, may be adduced as analogous ; but where there is no peri- 

 thecium, the occurrence of two species on the same spot, of the same matrix, is not 

 matter of so much surprise, though suggestive of further consideration. The case, 

 however, of Spheeria inquinans, which we have now to bring forward, is still stronger. 

 This species and Stilbospora macrosperma were extremely abundant on an old elm at 

 Batheaston in January last. Not only were they so intermixed as to make it diffi- 

 cult — from the close resemblance of the fruit, that of the one being merely a little 

 more elongated, and in a very slight degi-ee more attenuated at either extremity, with 

 rather a browner tinge — to say at once which was the Sphceria, which the Stilbospora, 

 but the same orifice in the bark gave egress both to the sporidia of the one and the 

 spores of the other. At the base of the spores of the Stilbospora, where they are seated 

 on their sporophores, from one to three short sheaths were observed, as if the spore had 

 burst through one or more enveloping membranes ; but not only was the Stilbospora 

 produced in the same portion of the bark as the Sphesria, or, perhaps, to speak more 

 correctly, in the same stroma, but in one case it was actually developed on the ex- 

 ternal surface of a perithecium, the inner surface giving rise to perfect asci with their 

 proper sporidia. In a certain stage of growth the sporidia of the Sphaeria are fur- 

 nished at either extremity with a cirrhiform appendage, but this is not always visible 

 in the ejected mass which surrounds the common orifice of the perithecia. Analogous 

 appendages occur in some other species. The third case to which we invite attention 

 is Hendersonia mutahilis, a species which occurs on twigs of Plane. The main peri- 

 thecium contains one or more cavities more or less isolated, which produce far smaller 

 hyaline bodies, and which do not accord with the genus Hendersonia, but rather with 

 Phoma. This is not indeed a case bearing upon the conversion of asci into spores, 

 but is interesting as exhibiting one perithecium within another ; and whether consi- 

 dered as a new cell developed within the old one, and consequently containyig 

 younger spores, a view at first adopted, but which, on mature consideration, seems 

 scarcely tenable, or as two forms of spores both belonging to the same species, but 

 produced in distinct cavities, or, finally, as two genera united within the same com- 

 mon receptacle, is full of interest. We are not prepared, as in the last case, to say 

 that the same wall from its two sides produces different forms of fruit, though in some 

 sections the two fertile surfaces are so confluent above, that it is very probable that 

 the same fact will be found to obtain here also. These instances certainly seem to 

 indicate rather a transformation of organs than any totally distinct productions, a 

 view indeed which is not at variance with the possibility of the transformed organs, 

 being an indication of sexual functions, if we may be allowed to form any inference 

 from known analogies in the animal world. Dr. Hooker, when examining the fruit 

 of Laminariae on his return from the antarctic expedition, felt convinced of the possi- 

 biUty of the transformation of an ascus into a spore, a view entertained long since by 

 Fries, and which is supported by those instances in fungi and lichens where a single 

 spore only is developed in an ascus. The diflTerence in the analysis of the genus 

 Spharophoron, as given by Dr. Montagne in the ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles,' 

 and by Dr. Hooker in the ' Antarctic Flora,' is probably due to a similar change; the 

 former exhibiting true asci containing sporidia, the latter moniliform threads, breaking 

 up into spores.. In earlier times the analysis of one would have been pronounced 

 erroneous, but the present age, with deeper knowledge of the apparent anomalies ex- 

 hibited by Nature, and consequently a greater measure of dittidence, regards such 

 discrepancies as calls to further investigations, and as the possibly available keys for 

 the solution of difficulties whieb have been hitherto insurmountable. 



