346 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



A NEW DISCINELLA. 



By W. D. Buckley. 



While searching for Discomycetes during the favourable con- 

 ditions of the early Spring a gathering was made of some speci- 

 mens among moss, under Ulex, suggesting at first sight a pale 

 Humaria. Further gatherings produced apothecia in every 

 stage of development and made it possible to identify a new 

 species of Discinella, D. margarita. The genus Discinella was 

 founded by Boudier in his Nouvelle Classification Naturelle des 

 Discomycetes Charnus in Bull. Soc. Myc. Fr. 1885, i, p. 112, 

 Phial ea Boudieri Quel, being made the type of the genus. The 

 generic characters were further amplified in his Histoire et Classi- 

 fication des Discomycetes d' Europe (1907) and as pointed out 

 by Ramsbottom in Journ. Bot. (1914), p. 215, consist of the 

 terrestrial habit and the size of the fungus which may reach 

 12 mm. ; the apothecia being thick and more or less subtomen- 

 tose ; the inoperculate, exceptionally small asci, with marginate 

 pore, and the slender paraphyses filled with oil globules. The 

 spores are fusiform and guttulate with or without granulations. 

 (Karsten's genus Discinella is not identical with Boudier's "est 

 DiscinaFr. cm apotheciis minoribus " (Hedwigia, 189 1, 30, p. 301) . 

 D. corticalis the type is found on wood.) The number of species 

 in the genus does not exceed seven (with possibly two synonyms) 

 five of which have been recorded for Britain. The species of this 

 genus are placed by Saccardo in Humaria. The present species 

 approximates most closely in general characters to D. Menziesi 

 Boud., described and figured in Brit. Mycol. Soc. Trans. 1913, 

 IV, p. 62, as Calycella Menziesi. Boudier himself corrected this 

 and assigned the fungus to its true position as a Discinella in 

 Tom. cit. p. 323. (The specific name was misspelled as "Meu- 

 riesi" Boud. in Bull. Soc. Mycol. Fr. xxxiii, p. 17, 1917.) 



Although D. Menziesi and the present species have points of 

 resemblance they are very distinct plants: the latter is smaller 

 and is marked by its pearl-grey colour especially when young, 

 with a remote touch of pink, as contrasted with the pronounced 

 rose colour of the former. In the many specimens of D. mar- 

 garita examined none exceeded i|-2 mm. The stipe was never 

 prominent as it often is in D. Menziesi, the specimens never 

 being more than turbinate. It is slightly furfuraceous on the 

 outside, the cells of the excipulum running out into patchy 

 bundles of short irregular hyphae. The asci are intermediate in 

 size between those of D. Menziesi and D. minutissima. The 

 paraphyses are filiform about i/x broad and frequently strongly 



