334 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



species of Galium and causes the plants to become curiously 

 dwarfed and blackened. It has a fairly wide distribution in this 

 country having been found as far north as Aberdeenshire (Trail, 

 1884), whilst examples, preserved in the Kew Herbarium, have 

 been collected at Swanage. 



Protomyces Galii, Rabenhorst, described by Fuckel (i860) is 

 apparently identical with Melanotaenium endogenum. Since 

 this date the following species of Melanotaenium have been 

 described: M. caulium Schroeter; M. cingcns (Beck) Magnus; 

 M. hypogaeum (Tul.) Schellenb. ; M. Art (Cooke) Lagerheim; 

 M. Selaginellae Henn. et Nym.; M. Jaapii Magnus; and three 

 doubtful species which have been named M. Sparganii Lagerh., 

 M. maculare (Wallr.) Cornu, and M. scirpicolum Cornu. 



With regard to the first of these {M. caulium) Schneider in 

 1 871 discovered a fungus growing parasitically upon Linaria 

 vulgaris which in an unpublished communication he termed 

 Ustilago caulium. In 1881 Beck described a fungus upon the 

 stems and leaves of Linaria genistifolia in the neighbourhood 

 of Vienna. This he named Ustilago cingcns. 



De Toni in Saccardo's "Sylloge fungorum" (1888) included 

 this fungus under the name Cintractia cingcns. Schroeter (1889) 

 in his " Kryptogamenflora von Schlesien" renamed Schneider's 

 hingus Melanotaenium catdium. Three years later Magnus (1892) 

 found a fungus growing upon the stems of Linaria vulgaris at 

 Bozen which agreed in its characters with the parasite origin- 

 ally discovered by Schneider and also with the one found by 

 Beck upon L. genistifolia. As the result of his observations 

 Magnus drew the conclusion that Ustilago caulium, U. cingcns, 

 Cintractia cingcns and Melanotaenium caulium were all one 

 species and suggested that this should be named Melanotae- 

 nium cingcns (Beck) Magnus. 



There is only a single record of the discovery of this fungus 

 in the British Isles. It was found in 1902 by Mr Theodore 

 Green along the river Dee in the neighbourhood of Llangollen. 

 Specimens of the British plant are preserved in the Kew 

 Herbarium and at the British Museum. 



Melanotaenium hypogaeum was first described by Tulasne 

 (1851) as Ustilago hypogaea. It was found by him in tuberous 

 swellings upon the hypocotyl and upper regions of the root of 

 Linaria spuria. Since that time it has been found again by 

 Dr John Lowe in 1869 on the same host in the Isle of Wight as 

 recorded by Phillips and Plowright (1884). It may be men- 

 tioned, however, that the specimen is not to be found in Plow- 

 right's herbarium. In 1907, Cruchet again met with this fungus 

 at Montagny. A brief account of the fungus was given by 

 Fischer von Waldheim (1877) and again by Schellenberg (1911) 



