34 Transactions British Mycological Society. 
is a pycnidial stage of Myriangium, but that has not yet been 
verified. 
No species of the Entomophthoreae was known on scale insects 
prior to 1918, when an Empusa, Empusa Lecantt, was recorded* 
on scale insects on coffee in Mysore. 
The list of families which are known to provide entomogenous 
fungi was extended by a remarkable addition in 1907, when 
von Héhnel} announced his discovery of scale insects beneath 
the stroma of a Septobasidium. That has since been repeatedt 
in Ceylon (where all the known species of Septobasidium appear 
to be entomogenous), in Japan, and on specimens from India 
and Canada. 
Species of Septobasidium are common in the tropics, where 
they occur on the stems, and sometimes on the leaves, of living 
plants, without, as a rule, causing any apparent injury. The 
commoner species have a peculiar structure. They first cover 
the stem with a thin adherent stroma, from which arise numerous 
erect bristles or fascicles of hyphae. Another continuous layer 
is then developed over the tops of the bristles, so that the 
structure is two-storied, the upper storey being supported on 
pillars. The hymenium is developed on the surface of the upper 
layer. If the fungus is examined in an early stage of develop- 
ment, the remains of the scale insects will be found beneath 
the initial layer of the stroma. The fungus grows over and kills 
whole colonies of scale insects, and completely covers the stems 
of the host plant. 
In Ceylon, Septobasidium rameale (Berk.) Bres. is frequent on 
orange trees infested with Myittlaspis, sometimes clothing all 
the stems for a length of several feet and spreading from them 
over the leaves. A species, allied to Septobasidium pedicellatum 
(Schw.), attacks scale insects on tea, and in some cases covers 
all the stems of a tea bush. Another species which is found on 
tea is usually associated with Chionaspis. The tea planter is 
often alarmed when he finds these fungi covering his bushes, 
but, in general, they are harmless. There are, however, excep- 
tions to the rule. Some species, after destroying the scale insects, 
attack the plant. That happens in the case of an undetermined 
species on tea in Ceylon, the species which causes the disease 
known as Velvet Blight on tea in Northern India, and several 
species on tea and mulberry in Japan§. 
Several species of Hyphomycetes have been recorded as para- 
sitic on scale insects. One of the most interesting of these is a 
* Dept. Agric. Mysore, Ento. Series, Bull. 4. 
+ Sitzungsber. d. Kais. Akad. d. Wissensch. Wien, Math. Naturw. KL, 
CXVI (1907), p. 740. 
¢ Annals of Botany, xxv (rort), p. 843. 
§ Mycologia, x (1918), pp. 88-99, 
