1896 ] BRIEFER ARTICLES 413 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXI. 
Botrychium biternatum (Lam.) Underw., natural size, with segment 
enlarged. Drawn by Miss Julia E. Clearwaters, from herbarium specimen 
collected at Auburn, Ala. 
A NEW SMUT. 
I wisx to call the attention of mycologists to one of the Ustilaginex 
which presents some features of interest. It is of the Doassansia group 
and occurs in the culms of Glyceria fluitans, the white mycelium rami- 
fying through the tissues and in the central cavity. The wall of the 
young sorus is formed of. coherent brown hyphe arching from base to 
apex. Outside of the wall are a few white unmodified hyphe extend- 
ing from the base to or toward the apex. When the young sorus is 
crushed in water under a cover glass the contents are seen to consist 
of atransparent substance which protrudes from the rent in the wall 
of the sorus like the ascus of a Spherotheca, and which is immediately 
withdrawn into the sorus when the pressure is removed. When the 
Sorus is mature the spores are irregularly one to three deep on the 
surface, lying upon dark brown pseudoparenchyma which constitutes 
the greater part of the sorus, but which is limited internally by a nar- 
tow layer of hyphz lining a central cavity into which the free ends of 
the hyphe project a few micra. It may be that the parenchymatous 
tissue in time fills the sorus, as I have not sectioned sori that had 
germinated. 
€ sori are most readily found in the central cavity of the Bost, 
loosely attached to its walls, and are most common in the lower inter- 
mie es. It was collected at Racine, Wisconsin, and Mr. H. F. Lueders 
kindly searched for and found it at Sauk City, Wisconsin. 
I found it difficult to induce the spores to germinate. Material, how- 
ever, that had been collected the previous year and kept continuously 
water on a 
ting from 
ithin which 
developed. When two globules came in contact they coalesced, ang 
thus the sporidia of two or more promycelia would lie 1n @ single glob- 
ule One 
