BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
Olpitrichum, a new genus of mucedinous fungi.—wiTH PLATE XXIIL. 
— Among the fungi which are active in hastening the rot ot the 
carpellary tissues of the fruit of Gossygium in the United States, when 
the cotton is mature and during wet weather, aré several mucedinous 
fungi which are attractive from the whitish or dirty buff color of the 
loose mass of threads and spores. Two of these which are quite com- 
mon are members of the genus Rhinotrichum Corda. They occur 
either separate or intermingled on the same boll. 2. macrosporum 
Farlow is, perhaps, the more common of the two and is quite fre- 
quently of a sordid buff color and can thus be provisionally separated 
from the other species, R. zene//um B. & C., at times, before examina- 
tion with the microscope. These two species are quite common In 
the vicinity of Auburn, Alabama, and I have found them in several 
other parts of the state. 
When visiting Brundage, Ala., for the purpose of inspecting the 
condition of the cotton in that region, I collected a fungus-on the 
bolls which I took upon superficial examination to be 2. senellum, 
from the fact that it resembled this species in color. It proved to be 
very different however, and the character of the basidia clearly sep 
rates it from the genus Rhinotrichum. ‘ 
In Rhinotrichum* the sterile hyphze are creeping, the fertile ones 
erect, their ends being denticulate to spiculigerous, the spores being : 
borne on these acicular sterigmata. In this new genus, for gee 
propose the name O/pitrichum, instead of the ends of the fertile hyp: 4 
_ being denticulate or spiculigerous, they bear well developed meat" 
shaped basidia, which are scattered over the surface of the 2 a 
portion of the hypha, or are clustered irregularly or in rosettes. 
genus may be characterized as follows: : Z 
Olpitrichum gen. nov.—Saprogenous. Sterile hyphz creeping, We 
tate, branched; fertile hyphe erect, simple or little branched, were 
Near the apex provided with flask-shaped, fusoid, or enlarged basi “it 
irregularly scattered or gregarious, which may be branched ot per 
proliferous, each bearing a single spore. Conidia. ovoid-oblong, Yack 
‘or pale colored. It is Rhinotrichum but with inflated basidia she 
are constricted at the point of union with the hypha. It page 
the same relation to Rhinotrichum that Pachybasium® does to ea 
Se : 
1Corda, Icones Fung. 1: 17. Saccardo, Syll. Fung. 4: oF. 
*Saccardo, Fung. Alger. Tahit. Gall. 6.—Syllog. Fung. 4: 149. 
