296 THAXTER. — MONOGRAPH OF THE LABOTJLBENIACE.E. 
Dioicomvces obliqueseptatus Thaxter. Plate XIII, figs. 16-17. 
Ptoe. Am. Acad Arts and Sri., Vol. XXXVII, p. 33. June, 1901. Amorphomyces obliqueseptatus Thaxter, 1. c., 
Vol. XXXV, p. 431. April, 1900. 
Male individual, unknown. 
Female individual, straw colored tinged with amber-brown. The perithecium broadly inflated at 
the bast*, bee oniing gradually narrower distally, the tip broad blunt asymmetrical; the apex somewhat 
oblique, the asei and spores in great numbers, filling the perithecium and developed from a single ascogenic 
cell. Spores obliquely septate, 40 X 7 p. Perithecium 200 X 55-60 /jl. 
On the antennae of an undetermined staphylinid perhaps near Myrmedonia, British Museum No. 
39S, Ega, Amazon River. 
This form is undoubtedly a species of Dioicomyces as is indicated by its obliquely septate spores, 
and it is evident that practically the whole of the receptacle was broken off when the specimens were 
removed from the host. It is needless to say that the species would not have been described had this 
been evident at the time of its publication. Although thus based on a perithecium merely, with its stalk- 
cell and an adherent fragment of the receptacle, there should be no difficulty in its future recognition. 
The host was a very peculiar staphylinid among the Miscellanea in the British Museum, and was nearly 
allied to Myrmedonia. 
SMERINGOMYCES nov. gen. 
Male (?) individual: bristle-like consisting of several superposed cells. 
Female (?) individual. Receptacle consisting of three or four superposed cells bearing a single 
terminal peritheciuin, the subbasal cell subtended by a bristle-like appendage, the cells above it also bear- 
ing similar appendages. Perithecium appendiculate, its cavity becoming continuous with that of the 
talk-cell. 
The type of this genus was provisionally placed in Rhachomyces, but there can be no doubt as to its 
distinctness, although it resembles it in possessing a receptacle consisting of superposed cells bearing 
bristle-like appendages. There being no other genus in which it can be even provisionally placed, I have 
reluctantly made a new one for its reception, although an adequate diagnosis is as yet impossible owing 
to a lack of any knowledge as to its antheridial characters. The form is rare and at the same time very 
minute, and I have as yet been unable to obtain young material in sufficient quantities to determine what 
these* antheridial characters are. In all cases where this could be determined, the perithecigerous indi- 
leveloped from the other member of the 
spore pair. This may represent an atrophied condition of an hermaphrodite individual, or may be a 
nale. I have in no case seen paired normal individuals, which if they occurred, would indicate that the 
spores were not different in a given pair. The small individual resembles very closely the primary bristle- 
tecompanie 
( 
appen 
preted as an antheridium. 
any structure which might 
norm 
be similarly interpreted; yet in either case, owing to the small size and opacity of the structures involved, 
•B anthenduun might be present and yet be visible only in especially favorable individuals. That it is 
probably a unisexual type is indicated by the peculiar characters of its peritheciu 
the basal cells of the latter, which results in making its cavity continuous with that of _ ,_ _, „ 
phenomenon seen only m dioecious genera. For this reason and in the absence of definite information 
m, the absorption of 
the stalk-cell, being a 
co 
n i i • i -~™*«« wi iuui aupurposeu cens terminated bv a pnmarv un&ms- 
Uta appendage which seems to correspond to the appendage which at maturity occupies a position at the 
Da* ot : the perithecium. The third cell appears to produce appendages distally, and the fourth to give 
nse to the penth< nun and the rest of the appendages, but the series of specimens is not complete enough 
to deternune these matters with exactness. The axis is thus not of secondary origin as in Rhachomyces. 
