30 Transactions British Mycological Society. 
" Species of Sphaerostilbe and Nectria attack Lepidosaphes 
(Mytilaspis), Chionaspis, A spidiotus, Fiorinia, and allied insects. 
Species of Aschersonia, on the other hand, attack only insects 
belonging to the families Lecaniidae and Aleyrodidae. Moreover, 
there is a notable difference between the species parasitic on 
the two families respectively: those parasitic on Aleyrodidae 
have paraphyses in the pycnidium, while those parasitic on 
Lecaniidae have no paraphyses. It is curious that of Montagne’s 
two species, Aschersonia taitensis is aleyrodiicolous, while 
Aschersonia guianensts is lecaniicolous. 
The perithecial stage of Aschersonia is Hypocrella, and as 
might be expected, it also is entomogenous. The earlier myco- 
logists included species of Hypocrella in Hypocrea, from which it 
differs in having long filiform spores which divide into rod- 
shaped, or oval, part-spores in the ascus. Hypocrella was split 
off in 1878 by Saccardo*, who placed in it four species, only 
one of which, the type species, now remains in the genus. Ten 
species were enumerated by Saccardof in 1883, but the number 
described up to the end of 1919 is seventy (including Fletscheria 
and Moellertella). 
In general, species of Hypocrella so closely resemble the 
corresponding species of Aschersonia that it is not possible to 
decide which a given stroma is without sectioning it. Yet it was 
apparently not until 1896 that any relationship between the 
two was suggested. In that year, Masseet stated that he had 
examined Berkeley’s specimen of Aschersonia oxyspora and 
found that it was a Hypocrella, Berkeley having mistaken the 
part spores for Aschersonia spores. He had also examined part 
of Montagne’s type of Aschersoma taitensis, the type species of 
the genus, and had found that the young stromata were covered 
with a dense stratum of fusiform spores while ‘‘the primordia 
of perithecia were very evident in the substance of the stroma.” 
Hence he suggested that “‘in all probability the genus A scher- 
sonia will prove to be nothing more than the conidial form of 
Hypocrella.” 
I have not been able to trace any further observations on 
this point by Massee, but three years later, in his Textbook of 
Plant Diseases (1899), he wrote, ‘‘I have shown that species of 
Aschersonia, which hitherto were only known to produce a 
conidial form of reproduction on living leaves, produce an 
ascigerous form of fruit, following the conidial stage, on fallen 
dead leaves.” . : 
Massee’s hypothesis, that Aschersonia is the pycnidial stage 
of Hypocrella, is undoubtedly true, but the observations which 
* Michelia, 1, p. 322. t Sylloge Fungorum, It, p. 579. 
ft Journ. of Botany (1896), p. 151. 7 
