32 Mr. A. H..Chureh on Myxotrichum chartarum. 
VITI.—Note on Myxotrichum chartarum (Kunze). 
By Artuur H. Cuurcn, B.A. Oxon., F.C.S. 
[Plate VI.] 
My attention was first directed to this beautiful fungus by my 
friend Mr. Northcote, of Queen’s College, Oxford, who noticed 
its occurrence on damp cotton fibres: it is generally found on 
damp straw or paper. It was first figured by Kunze, and after- 
wards by Corda. As the works of these authors are not easily 
accessible, I thought that a careful drawing, traced from the 
plant itself by means of the camera Jucida, might prove accept- 
able to British fungologists. Plate VI. fig. 1 represents three 
plants of their natural size; fig. 2, the same three plants slightly 
enlarged ; and fig. 3, a single plant magnified 400 diameters. 
The fungus is of a deep-brown colour, and horny texture. 
The mycelium is dichotomously branched for the most part; and 
the original portions of it increase centrifugally, so that the 
mature plant finally assumes the spherical form. Among the 
growing points of the mycelium which make up this sphere, 
from three to thirty processes of singular form project. These 
hooks are curved more or less spirally at their outer extremities, 
and are divided transversely into nine or ten segments. Fig. 4 
shows a branched spiral hook (“zusammengerollter Haken” of 
Corda), separated from the mass of mycelium, and magnified 
800 diameters. Corda’s figure*, which is not altogether satis- 
factory, does not disclose any segmentation of the spirals; he 
describes only the separation that can be effected between their 
outer and inner parts. Towards the centre of the fungus, when 
mature, a confused yellow mass may be noticed. When this 
yellow mass is carefully separated from the flocci, and a portion 
of it examined, it appears to consist of thin fragile sacs of a clear 
deep-yellow colour; these soon burst and set free a number of 
white or grey oval bodies: the latter I take to be spores, the 
former a kind of enveloping membrane, resembling the cyst in 
Badhamia. Figs. 5a and 5b represent these spores, and fig. 5 ¢ 
the supposed spore-sacs after they have discharged their con-’ 
tents. The spores readily vegetate among damp cotton-fibres ; 
and I have raised from them a new supply of the fungus: fig. 6 
represents two young plants. The yellow bodies here referred 
to are apparently identical with those described by Corda as 
spores: he speaks of them as of a golden-yellow colour, and 
attached, in compound chains of a branching form, to certain 
central portions of the mycelium. I have not yet been able to 
discover them in situ, and I must leave their true relations an 
open question. Moreover the septate character (not recognized 
* Tcones Fungorum, tom. vi. tab, 2. fig. 23. 4d, 
