Prof. G. de Notaris on the Tribe Spheriacez. 225 
portant characters, and there are always too many who fly from 
minute and conscientious analysis, I would advise them to return 
to the golden age in which no generic difference was recognised 
between Lycoperdon, Lycogala and Spheria. 
In the meantime, to confirm by some examples the reason- 
ableness of the mnovations which I am meditating, I subjoin the 
descriptions of some genera belonging to the Aplospheria. 
I. VENTURIA. 
Perithecia crustacea, fragilia, globoso-depressa, poro rotundo amplo 
pertusa, circa ostiolum setulis rigidis longiusculis hispida, fundo 
ascigera. Asci fixi erecti oblongi ellipticive, in basim breviter 
abrupteque tenuati, fere pedicellati octospori. Paraphyses nulle. 
Sporidia constricto-didyma bilocularia, articulis subequalibus, epi- 
sporio pertenui endosporio vix translucido papyraceo fuscescente. 
I dedicate this genus, of which I know two species, to the en- 
lightened Sig. Antonio Venturini of Brescia, an excellent myco- 
logist. 
1. Venturia Rose: sporidiorum fusco-castaneorum loculis inzqua- 
libus obtusis, inferiore minore, 
It grows on the dead boughs of the Rosa alpina at Mt. Cenis. 
_ It appears to have a great analogy with the Spheria strigosa 
of Albertini and Schweinitz (Conspect. Fung. p. 33. n. 3. tab. 5. 
fig. 7. a, b, c) ; nevertheless it differs from it in not being entirely 
invested with bristles, in the depresso-globose perithecia, instead 
of globose or ovate, and still more by their rather ample and not 
papillated ostiolum. 
2. Venturia Dianthi : sporidiorum atro-fuscorum loculis subzqualibus 
ovato- subacutis. 
On the dried stalks of the Dianthus carthusianorum, or within 
their cavity. 
The two species agree together admirably in the manner of 
their development, bursting through the epidermis, which at first 
covers them, in the form of the ostiolum, which is surrounded by 
rigid bristles, in the structure of the perithecium and the nucleus, 
in the absence of paraphyses, in the asci, which are strongly at- 
tenuated at the base, mm the bilocular brown sporidia, veiled by 
an episporium, which is almost confluent with the papyraceous 
endosporium, and are easily distinguished by the shape of the 
sporidia without having recourse to the dimensions of the peri- 
thecia and the matrix, from which, if we were to take the di- 
stinctive characters, the one, V. Rose, would belong to the Villose; 
the other, V. Dianthi, to the Caulicole. 
