and some other Grasses. 471 



respecting it will now be untenable, and it will be requisite to correct also the 

 botanical relations of this body, in order to assign to its assumed cause a po- 

 sition amongst the lowest of the divisions of Fungi. 



On comparing the characters of the minute parasite of the ergot with those 

 of British and foreign genera to which it is allied, it has been found so unlike 

 any of them, as at present constituted, as to deserve being made a new 

 genus, to which I have given the title of Ergotcetia* ; and after repeated exa- 

 minations of the Rye and other grasses, I have not hitherto found any material 

 difference in its organization or characters to warrant the making of those be- 

 longing to different grasses into different species ; therefore I adopt the specific 

 term ahortifaciensf for the fungus found on the rye, and believe those on other 

 ergotized grasses to be of the same species, when the ergots are of a similar 

 character. 



This minute plant, from its structure and habit, will be classed among the 

 Fungi, and placed in the suborder Coniotni/cetes of Fries, and in the tribe 3Iu- 

 cedines, or in Berkeley's arrangement of British Fungi in the tribe Sporidesmiei, 

 which comprehends those genera which have their " sporidia chained together 

 intojlocci at length free.'' 



Tlie British genera of this tribe are three, — Aregina, Torula, and Spilocœa ; 

 the first of which has sporidia opaque and pedunculated, whilst in the present 

 plant they are transparent, and without peduncles ; the second differs by 

 having its sporidia filled with a grumous mass, whilst the plant under consider- 

 ation has one, two, or three well-defined granules in their interior ; and the 

 last does not show the sporidia arranged in moniliform filaments. 



Tlie characters by which the plant may be recognised are the following: — 



Ergotcetia. Sporidia elliptical, moniliform, finally separating, transparent, 

 and containing seldom more than one, two, or three well-defined (greenish) 

 granules. 



E. abortifaciens. (Characters as above.) Vide Tab. XXXIII. B. fig. 3 — If. 



* Derivation from Ergot, Fr. (Ergota Pharm. Land. 1836), and atria, origo. 



t When tliis paper was read before the Society, the specific name used was ahortans, which was 

 intended to apply directly to the fungus destroying the germinating power of the grain, and indirectly 

 to the more remarkable properties of the ergot. This term, however, is not grammatical, and by the 

 suggestion of J. Pereira, Esq., the present one has been substituted. 



VOL. XVIII. 3 Q 



