32 
abundant and very protean, scattered sometimes over the 
general surface of the thallus, but more frequently and more 
especially affecting the cushion-like thalline deformities just 
described. The variable forms under which the parasite occurs 
are mostly referable either to a Verrucarioid or Lecidioid 
type. ‘The former typical condition is represented by puncti- 
form or papilleform perithecia, crowning thalline warts, and 
more or less immersed therein: round and black—sometimes 
girt with a more or less distinct or faint thalline ring, which 
resembles an exciple. Sometimes these perithecia are agglo- 
merated in largish masses: or they are confluent in com- 
pound, verruceeform conceptacles, irregular in shape and 
surface. Forms referable to the Lecidioid type are still more 
variable, especially as to size and shape. Sometimes they are 
large, scattered, round, flat, with a black smooth disk and a 
thalline (spurious) margin; at other times the outline is 
irregular, the disk convex, granular or rough—occasionally 
slightly pruinose—with a glaucous or bluish-white bloom 
covering or obscuring the varying depth of its blackness. The 
size is sometimes small; they are immarginate, and confluent 
or crowded in large irregular masses. 
In Lochnagar specimens of L. ventosa the apothecia are 
frequently small and abortive, but they cannot be confounded 
with the Spheria: the latter, however, is more apt to be con- 
founded with the spermogonia of the Lecanora. These spermo- 
gonia are never Lecidicid: they are more distinctly verruce- 
form: more frequently compound: of a paler, bluer hue: 
more superficial: and elevated on ordinary thalline papille. 
Intermingled with the sporidiferous perithecia of the 
Spheria, on the thalline anamorphoses before described, are 
certain black papilleform conceptacles,? which are, perhaps— 
seeing that they contain no normal reproductive structure, of 
the nature of pycnidia or spermogonia, or both—referable pro- 
bably (should this supposition prove correct) to the Spheria. 
But other conceptacles of similar external character are 
apparently referable to Torula lichenicola, Linds.,° or at least 
to a parasitic Torula. They contain the characteristic spore- 
chains or filaments of Toru/a, here, however, colourless: as- 
sociated with other, much more delicate, more articulated, 
1 Spheria ventosaria is further described or figured in the following papers : 
1. “Otago Lichens and Fungi,” p. 439. 
2. “Observations on W. Greenland Lichens,” pp. 346, 366, 
plate 1, fig. 10. : 
3. “New Lichenicolous Micro-Fungi,” p. 537. 
2 Vide “ Observations on W. Greenland Licheus,” p. 366, plate, fig. 9. 
3 “New Lichenicolous Micro-Fungi,” ‘Trans. Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh,’ vol. xxv, pp. 515 and 530. 
