1895.] New or Peculiar Zygomycetes. 517 
Van Tieghem has called attention to the septa of the fer- 
tile hyphz in the present genus (which by an oversight were 
not inked in the accompanying illustrations before repro- 
duction) and described the disc-like thickening for which they 
are remarkable. The same thickenings occur in Dimargarts, 
and, as was first noted by Van Tieghem, also in the second 
group of uncertain genera already referred to as constituting 
the family of Coemansiz. It may be mentioned in this con- 
nection that the writer has cultivated certain of the latter 
forms (Coemansia reversa, Kickxella alabastrina and several 
others) on nutrient agar-agar in an absolutely pure condition 
some of them for a period of years, under various conditions, 
without ever having observed the production of any perithe- 
cia, and although Kickxella has been connected with an 
ascigerous condition, the evidence on which this connection 
is based is of the most unsatisfactory nature, and the reference 
of the group to the Hyphomycetes seems based on practically 
no reliable information. In the writer's opinion the peculi- 
arities of the sporophores, the coherence of the gelatinous 
spoie mass when ripe, together with the peculiarities of the 
septa just mentioned, as well as the general habit of these 
plants would indicate a connection with the Mucorinez rather 
than with any other known fungi. 
Dispira Americana, nov. sp.—Vegetative hyphz slender 
branched, creeping on the substratum or running on species 
of Mucor to which they become parasitically attached, giving 
tise to single erect septate colorless fertile hyphe which be- 
come terminally several times more or less regularly falsely 
dichotomously branched, the divisions spirally twisted, the 
curved ultimate branchlets either sterile or bearing terminally 
a white fertile head. Fertile heads spherical, producing nu- 
merous sterigmata which bud in all directions and consist of 
two superposed cells, the upper formed as a bud from the apex 
of the lower, each giving rise distally to several short spore 
chains of two spores each. Zygospores always formed in 
without suspensors, nearly spherical, pale brownish, slightly 
roughened, partly surrounded by a rosette of slightly rough- 
ened finger-like processes from the supplying gamete. Fer- 
tile hyphe about 1™ high, 10-124 in diameter. Fertile 
heads 35-45 in diameter. Spores 3X1. Zygospores 35— 
65 in diameter. 
