THE GENUS MATULA. 



There has been a very bad muddle made with reference to the 

 genus Matula, as found in the latest text-books, Saccardo, and Engler 

 and Prantl. This can be traced originally to ambiguous work on the 

 part of Berkeley. The genus Matula is a curious genus, closest, I 

 think, to the Nidulariaceae. It consists of little cup-shaped plants, 

 looking superficially like a little Peziza. The color is white, or pale, 

 and the texture, when dry, is rather hard and horny, though when 

 fresh ard moist is said to be somewhat gelatinous. The spores are 

 very numerous, and seem to fill almost the entire interior of the plant. 

 They are contained in cells or chambers, and the walls of the cham- 

 bers in the plants partially persist and partially disappear. Fig. 229 

 is by Massee, showing his idea of an enlarged cross section of a cup. 

 I do not know the method of dehiscence, but Father Rick, in one of 

 his letters to me, mentions it. I have never seen a plant that had 

 opened. The spores remind me of those of the large-spored species 

 of Cyathus. They are perfectly globose, 18 to 20 mic., hyaline with 

 thick spore walls (about 3 mic.). They do not appear to me to 

 be basidial spores (neither do Cyathus spores, cfr. Nidulariaceae, p. 6). 

 Mr. Fetch, of Ceylon, who has studied their development writes me 

 that they are borne singly on side branches of indefinite, long 

 hyphae, with nothing resembling a basidia. 1 They seemed to be 

 packed very densely in the chambers of the plant. 



RELATIONS. The relations appear to be entirely with the Nidulariaceae. 

 The spores are the same, but are contained in chambers in the tissue, not in 

 separate peridioles. The structure is very much like that of Torrendia. The 

 genus has no relations to the Thelephoraceae, where it is placed (in a foot note) 

 in Saccardo. 



HISTORY. When Berkeley wrote on the plants of Cuba, he established a 

 <renus Michenera in the Thelephoraceae, and called the species Michenera Arto- 

 creas. 2 It had peculiar " lemon-shaped " large spores, borne, of course, on the 

 surface (and now demonstrated to be conidial spores). The genus Matula, 

 Berkeley first received from Ceylon, and he made a new genus for it, Artocreas, 

 and called the plant Artocreas poroniaeformis. It had the spores in cells in the 

 interior of the plant, as Berkeley knew, for there is a sketch (by Broomei 

 showing such structure with the type specimen. Berkeley made no reference 

 to it, however, and states "a species of the same very distinct genus, Artocreas 

 Micheneri, occurs in the United States." As Artocreas Micheneri appears to be 

 simply a transposition of the previously published Michenera Artocreas, it has 

 been usually assumed that the genus Artocreas was an inadvertent publication, 

 and that Berkeley intended to write Michenera,'' 5 hence the Ceylonese species is 

 included in Michenera in Saccardo and Engler and I'rantl, though it has not 



'When the genus Matula was established it was said to have basidia, in fact, a picture 

 was shown of them. I am afraid a good deal of such work is largely made up, and I would 

 >ersonally prefer to rely on the observations o.f Mr. Fetch. It is a subject, however, I know 

 nothing about. 



- " The genus Michenera, as far as the type species M. Artocreas'i at least is concerned, 

 can not be accepted. Michenera Artocreas, as shown by culture, is undoubtedly merely a conid- 

 ol a Corticium, probably C. subgiganteum." W. G. FARLOW. 



3 i J j h , ad that im P ress 'on myself when I was at Kew. and did not investigate as closely as 

 I should have done. When I look the subject up now I note that Berkeley does not cite the 

 lection numbers for Artocreas Micheneri that he does for Michenera Artocreas. 



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