196 FUNGI. 



Spliceria aquila, Fr.,* which is almost always found nestling in a 

 woolly brown subiculum, for the most part composed of barren 

 brown jointed threads. These threads, however, produce, under 

 favourable conditions, mostly before the perfection of the peri- 

 thecia, minute subglobose conidia, and in this state constitute 

 what formerly bore the name of Sporotrichum fuscum, Link., but 

 now recognized as the conidia of Splusria aquila. 



In Sph&ria nidulans, Schw., a North American species, we have 

 more than once found the dark brown subiculum bearing large 

 triseptate conidia, having all the characters of the genus Helmin- 

 tliosporlum. In SpJxzria pilosa^ P., Messrs. Berkeley and Broome 

 have observed oblong conidia, rather irregular in outline, ter- 

 minating the hairs of the perithecium.f The same authors 

 have also figured the curious pentagonal conidia springing from 

 flexuous threads accompanying Spli(ria felinci, Fckl.,J and also 

 the threads resembling those of a Cladotriclium with the angular 

 conidia of Spharia citpulifera, B. and Br. A most remarkable 

 example is also given by the Brothers Tulasne in Pleospora 

 polytricha, in which the conidia-bearing threads not only 

 surround, but grow upon the perithecia, and are crowned by 

 fascicles of septate conidia. || 



Instances of this kind have now become so numerous that 

 only a few can be cited as examples of the rest. It is not at all 

 improbable that the majority of what are now classed together 

 as species under the genus of black moulds, Helminthosporium, 

 will at some not very distant period be traced as the conidia of 

 different species of ascomycetous fungi. The same fate may 

 also await other allied genera, but until this association is 

 established, they must keep the rank and position which has 

 been assigned to them. 



Another form of dualism, differing somewhat in character 



* Cooke, " Handbook," ii. p. 853, No. 2549 ; specimens in Cooke's "Fungi 

 Britannic! Exsiccati," No. 270. 



f Berk, and Br. "Ann. Nat. Hist." (1865), No. 1096. 



J "Ann. Nat. Hist." (1871), No. 1332, pi. xx. fig. 23. 



Ibid. No. 1333, pi. xxi. fig. 24. 



II Tulasne, " Selecta Fungorum Carpologia," ii. p. 269, pi. 29. 



