576 Rer. M. J. Berkeley on a Gall gathered in Cuba 



So palpable are some analogies between vaiious prodnctions of Insects 

 and Fungij^ that many eggs, galls, &c. have been described by authors as 

 true Fungi. The eggs of an Hemerobius, for instance, are Corda's Crate- 

 romyces Candidas. Hi/poxi/lon ostraceum, Bull. {Sphcvria ostracea, Sow.) is 

 the nidus of an insect, as I have myself ascertained, though I have not as 

 yet been able to learn of what order. Atractobolus ubiqiiitarius, Tode. is 

 the egg of some Acarus, of the genus Raphignathus, probably, or some 

 allied genus. It is most remarkable, however, that Fries has lately found 

 a real Fungus whose characters agree exactly with those laid down from 

 the insect's egi^. Epich/siam argenfetim, Totle, is, according to the great 

 Swedish mycologist, certainly entomogenous. The same may be said of some 

 Ascop/iot-œ. 



The eggs of Crioceris Asparagi are so exactly like Acrospermum com- 

 pressum, that it is ditRcult to distinguish them without analysis. In exa- 

 mining moulds the mycologist is often puzzled by the apparent presence of 

 sporangia, which on mure close inspection turn out to be the eggs of some 

 minute Acari. 



Again, various galls assume the form of Fungi, so that specimens are often 

 transmitted as such by young botanists. Sclerotium fasciculatum, Schumacher, 

 Fl. Dan. tab. 1492, is a common gall on oak-leaves ; Calocera Lauri, Brotero, 

 a clavarieeform production, is, I understand, caused by an insect. But none 

 perhaps is more remarkable than the subject of the present memoir, which at 

 once so closely resembles a Fungus, and differs, in its erumpent habit and 

 operculum, so much from other galls, that (on a cursory inspection indeed) it 

 was regarded as an epiphytous Fungus by some of our first botanists, and was 

 not recognised as the work of an insect even by the great entomologist who 

 gathered it in Cuba, where it appears to be abundant. 



On the occasion of making me a most kind offer of collecting Fungi for my 

 Herbarium, in Australia, Mr. MacLeay was so good as to transmit to me for 

 examination a leaf studded with the productions in question. 



plants. It appears to have escaped observation that Kunze first pointed out the spiral structure of the 

 flocci in Trichiacem. See Kz. /. c. vol. ii. p. 94. Klotzsch also made the same discovery in examining 

 the Funo-i of Sir W. J. Hooker's Herbarium in the year 1831. 



