CAPSULAR FUNGI— P y RENO MYCETES 213 



asci contain eight sausage-shaped hyaline sporidia. A closely 

 allied genus is Cryptovalsa, which conforms externally to 

 Eutypa, but the asci contain respectively more than eight 

 similar sporidia. 



The other genus contained in this family has the stroma 

 commonly less broadly effused, and the species are more rare 

 on wood than on the bark of branches, twigs, and the stems of 

 herbaceous plants. The ostiola are often very much elongated, 

 and the surface of the stroma is usually blackened. The great 

 feature in which this genus differs from the preceding is in 

 the fruit : although the asci are octosporous, the sporidia are 

 typically fusoid and colourless, replete at first with four 

 guttules or minute oil-drops, and at length often uniseptate, or 

 in some cases triseptate. 



The compound Sphaeriaceae for the most part may be 

 recognised at once by the naked eye, on account of their larger 

 size, from the agglomeration of perithecia, and the presence of 

 a stroma, or bed, on which they are placed or immersed, and 

 which of itself partakes of a definite form. In all systems of 

 classification prior to Saccardo, the compound and simple 

 Sphaeriaceae were kept apart, and were recognised as separate 

 groups, which certainly facilitated identification by the student. 

 Under the system promulgated by Saccardo, there is no 

 distinction of that kind, but all are mixed together and 

 classified according to their sporidia. Convinced that this was 

 practically an error, we undertook a rearrangement of the 

 Pyrenomycetes, in which the compound and simple were kept 

 distinct, whilst most of the new genera were accepted. This 

 scheme was embodied in Synopsis Pyreiiomycetum, published in 

 1884 to 1886. 



The section of the Spliacriaceae which includes the Sim- 

 'jMces, or genera in which the perithecia are distinct from each 

 other, and not combined in or upon a common stroma, is even 

 more numerous in species, and may be described in like 

 manner under the several subfamilies. The connecting link 

 is the subfamily Cucurhitarieae, in which the perithecia are 

 densely gregarious or caespitose, and for the most part form 

 large erumpent clusters. In Nitschkia the black perithecia 

 are mostly clustered upon a thin whitish mycelium, the asci 



