The original crude figure shows six specimens from the tuber, 

 and on the fine figure recently published by Ramsbottom, there are 

 eight. We found the plant several times in Samoa, mostly with a 

 single fruit from each sclerotium, in one instance two. We had an 

 idea that this was the difference between the Samoan plant, and 

 Tuber regium, but all the specimens we have noted in the museums 

 have one, or at the most, two fruits, and we believe the several 

 fruits from one sclerotium is an unusual development. Our photo- 

 graph, made from a specimen at Kew from Africa, shows one fruit 

 and young ones just starting. 



SARCOXYLON LE RAT I, FROM J. B. CLELAND, AUS- 

 TRALIA. (Fig. 952.) This grew from an underground tuber and 

 was named Squamotubera Le Rati by Hennings (in 1903) from New 

 Caledonia. It is very similar in several re- 

 spects to the more frequent Sarcoxylon com- 

 punctum originally from Java, but which also 

 occurs in Australia and was well figured in 

 Cooke's Handbook (fig. 196). I found the 

 latter abundantly in Samoa, growing on fal- 

 len tree trunks, particularly where they had 

 lodged off the ground and were not much 

 decayed. Sarcoxylon Le Rati is a rare plant, 

 heretofore only known from New Caledonia. 

 Patouillard got it also from New Caledonia 

 and considersd it a " transformation " of Sar- 

 coxylon compunctum. Surely that is wrong. 

 Plants that normally are globose and grow 

 usually pendant from tree trunks, do not 

 "transform" into cylindrical club shape 

 plants growing erect from sclerotia buried in 

 the ground. I hope Dr. Cleland will send me 

 some of the sclerotia and also more mature 

 specimens for the specimens sent are the 

 conidial state and very immature. 



In Cooke's Handbook, page 287 is a short 

 account of " Xylaria gigas?" growing on 

 "stumps &c." New South Wales. It has 

 been omitted in Saccardo. Possibly it is Sar- 

 coxylon Le Rati but until more is known 

 about it and its habits nothing can be decided. 

 Cooke made his usual bull as to the genus 

 Sarcoxylon which he proposed, and described 

 the perithecia as membranaceous. They are 

 carbonous and the genus is close to Xylaria. 

 Indeed since Junghuhn (1838) figured the curious "Sphaeria com- 

 puncta" from Java there has been constant discord as to its generic 

 classification. Montagne and Fries put it in Hypoxylon, Berkeley in 

 Xylaria, and Saccardo in Penzigia. I think it is further from Pen- 

 zigia in the type idea than from either of the others. 



668 



Fig. 960. 



