﻿156 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [march 



appearance on a bit of mongoose dung picked up in a ravine 

 near Kingston. It forms at first a cottony mycelium composed 

 of septate branching hyphae of very rapid growth, which soon 

 collapse more or less completely, sending up at intervals short 

 branchlets which become sporophores, and under a hand lens 

 appear to rise directly from the substratum. These sporophores 

 consist of short, broadly clavate branches, the distal portion 

 swollen with variable abruptness, and from the surface of the 

 more or less distinctly differentiated head thus formed the spores 

 arise directly as in Oedocephalum. The spores, which are fawn 

 colored to pale chocolate-brown in the mass, are quite unlike those 

 of other genera of this type in being multiseptate, thick-walled, 

 and subcylindrical. The septa are transverse and commonly 

 three in number, but vary from two to rarely as many as six. 

 The basal cell is never functional and always colorless, and others 

 of the cells, especially the terminal ones, are often empty at matu- 

 rity, the contents becoming concentrated in the remaining seg- 

 ments. The mature spores have very thick walls and are able 

 to retain their vitality air-dry for more than a year, germinating 

 readily in water, or on nutrients, in the ordinary fashion. 



Like the first type described above, this fungus has been in 

 constant cultivation for twelve years in my laboratory without 

 showing any signs of the production of an ascigerous condition. 

 The same species has been obtained -and cultivated, for periods 



ranging from two 



J 



and from China, under conditions which leave no doubt of its 

 origin from these localities, so that it may be assumed to be a 

 common form of wide distribution throughout the tropics. 



A second and closely allied species of the same genus was 

 also obtained on material sent from Porto Rico, and although it 

 was at first believed to be a mere variety of the first, its differ- 

 ences, after five years of cultivation, still remain so constant that 

 its separation seems warranted. Its spores are differently shaped, 

 and normally once, less often twice, septate, the terminal cell 

 being relatively large and usually the only functional segment. 

 Its habit of growth in tubes is also less luxuriant, the sporiferous 

 hyphae forming a stringy coating on the agar, usually more or 



