231 
SOME WOOD-STAINING FUNGI. 
With Plates VIII and IX. 
By B. D, MacCallum, M.A., D.Sc., F.L.S. 
I. Ceratostomella Piceae Miinch. 
The first recorded observation of the cause of “‘blue-rot”’ in 
timber was made by Hartig(:), who noted that the “blueing”’ 
of pine-wood was due to the brown mycelium of a fungus which 
rapidly penetrated the whole trunk with the exception of the 
heart-wood. This fungus he described under the name of 
Ceratostoma piliferum. Saccardo(s) proposed the new genus 
Ceratostomella for all species with colourless ascospores. 
In 1903 investigation of the “blueing” of pine timber began 
in America, and von Schrenk (6) submitted a report on it to the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture. He describes the perithecia 
of Ceratostomella pilifera Wint. as they occur on the wood of 
Pinus ponderosa and in artificial culture, and mentions the 
occurrence of conidial forms, but his investigations of these was 
unfinished. He was of opinion that the entrance of the fungi 
into the trunks of standing trees was through the galleries made 
by the bark beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), but it was to the 
attacks of the beetle and not of the fungus that he attributed 
the death of the trees. The paper also gives the result of tests 
of the strength and durability of the blue wood. 
In 1906, Hedgcock(2) took up the work where von Schrenk 
had left it, and published the result of his investigation on 
“Chromogenic fungi which discolour wood,’ wherein he de- 
scribed numerous species of Ceratostomella, describing both 
conidial forms and perithecia, and, in addition, gave an account 
of other wood-staining fungi under the genera—Gvaphium, 
Hormodendron, Hormiscium and Penicillium. 
In 1907, Ernst Miinch (4) published “‘ Die Blaufaule des Nadel- 
holzes’’—a paper embodying the result of most careful investi- 
gation of the genus Ceratostomella. Miinch is of opinion that 
Ceratostomella pilifera Wint. must be regarded as a composite 
species and describes three of the constituent species—C. Piceae, 
C. cana and C. coerulea; a further species, C. Pint, is sharply 
marked off from the others by its much smaller, short-necked 
perithecium. The perithecia of the “‘pilifera group” are all of 
the same type, and these species differ only in their auxiliary 
fruit-forms. 
- In addition, Miinch describes a new species, Endoconidiophora 
coerulescens, of which he says “As to another fungus (hitherto 
