HELOTIUM. 258 



Whatever claims the original forms, given as synonyms 

 here, may have had as to specific individuality, an examina- 

 tion of the exsiccati and authentic specimens on whose 

 authority the so-called species have been added to the 

 British list shows that all belong to one species. Extreme 

 forms undoubtedly look dissimilar, but where the whole of 

 the series of British forms can be examined, it is found 

 impossible to discriminate the species as accepted by Phillips j 

 the distinguishing characters being at most, trivial pocket- 

 lens features. 



Distinguished by the slender spores, and the small cup- 

 shaped, stalked ascophore, the margin of which is usually 

 minutely pulverulent and striatulate when young. 



Helotium sublateritium. B. & Br., Ann. Nat. Hist., 

 n. 1488 ; Phil., Brit. Disc., p. 161 ; Sacc., Syll., viii., n. 933. 



Scattered or gregarious, very shortly stipitate, soon 

 becoming quite plane, or the extreme margin remaining 

 upturned, glabrous, pale brick-red, 1-1 1 mm. diameter ; 

 stem cylindrical, delicately covered with white down, then 

 smooth ; hypothecium and excipulum consisting of hyaline, 

 thin, intricately interwoven hyphae that run out into a 

 small-celled cortical parenchyma; asci elongated, narrowly 

 clavate, apex slightly narrowed, pedicel long, slender, 

 8-spored ; spores smooth, hyaline, continuous, elliptic- 

 fusiform, straight or very slightly bent, irregularly 2-seriate 

 above, 1 -seriate below, 24-26x5-6 p., sometimes 2-guttulate; 

 paraphyses slender, hyaline, scarcely thickened at the tips. 



On dead stems of herbaceous plants. 



Type specimen examined. 



Distinguished by the plane, circular, pale brick-red disc, 

 the paler, minutely wiinkled under surface, and the large 

 spores. 



Helotium scutula. Karsten, Myc. Fenn., p. 110; 

 Piehm, Krypt.-FL, p. 792, figs. 1-5, p. 771. 



Gregarious or crowded, stipitate, at first closed and 

 roundish or funnel-shaped, soon becoming quite plane, firm, 

 glabrous, yellow with a brick-red tinge, ^-3 mm. broad ; stem 

 slender, equal, 15 mm, high, smooth, often reddish-brown 

 at the base ; hypothecium and excipulum hyaline, composed 

 entirely of interwoven hyphae, and passing into a yellowish 



