LOPH1UM. 37 



On bark and wood of Pinus and Abies. 



Gregarious, standing at all angles (i.e. not arranged in 

 parallel series). Specimen examined from Fries' Scler. Suec., 

 n. 60. 



Most frequently springing from a black, more or less 

 broadly effused stain in the matrix, caused by a mass of dark 

 brown, interwoven, septate hyphae which give origin to the 

 ascophores. 



Lophium elatum. Greville, Scot. Crypt. Flo., p. 177, 

 t. 177, fig. 2 ; Sacc., Syll., ii. n. 5840; Cke., Hdbk., p. 766. 



Ascophore about 1J mm. high, vertical, base cylindrical, 

 narrow, gradually broadening out and becoming compressed 

 upwards, lips thin, acute, slit very narrow, about mm. 

 across the apex ; membranaceous, black, indistinctly "trans- 

 versely striate, springing from a weft of brown hyphae at 

 the base, which do not, however, form an effused black stain, 

 the hyphae extend for some distance up the two opposite 

 sides of the ascophore ; asci narrowly cylindrical, 8-spored ; 

 spores needle-shaped, almost as long as the ascus, 180200 x 

 1J fj., niultiseptate, straight, hyaline at first, becoming pale 

 olive at maturity, arranged in a parallel fascicle ; paraphyses 

 very slender, equal, apex not thickened, branched, 11^ p. 

 thick, colourless. 



On naked wood or bark. 



The specimens generally originate in groups of two to 

 four, more or less connate at the base and springing from 

 dark brown hyphae. 



Specimen from Scotland, now in Herb. Berk., Kew; exa- 

 ; mined. There is no name on the specimen, but the word 

 i " Scotland " is in Greville's handwriting ; hence the specimen 

 [ may be accepted as authentic. 



Black, erect, about a line high, stipitate ; the stalk nearly 

 cylindrical at the base, very gradually dilating and passing 

 into the compressed, transversely striated, black, wedge- 

 shaped perithecium ; the whole very similar to the head of 

 a, long-shaped hatchet. (Greville.) 



