THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 93 



it :■ — " The stem with caterpillar attached is from five to eighteen 

 inches long, rarely branched, flexious, rugged below, cylindrical, 

 solid, white, collecting particles of sand by means of a few downy 

 threads. The head is from two to three inches long, one-third to 

 one-quarter of an inch thick, perfectly cylindrical or lanceolate, 

 obtuse or a httle acute at the apex, sometimes compressed, yellow 

 below, with the top of the stem becoming black above. The 

 mouths of the perithecia scarcely projecting ; ^poridia breaking up 

 into truncate (almost quadrate) joints." The specimen which I 

 have drawn was found by Mr. C. French in Studley Park, near 

 the River Yarra, and the dried specimen is now to be seen in the 

 Botanic Museum, Melbourne. It differs from most specimens in 

 one important particular. Generally the fungus is continued in a 

 line with the body, whereas in the one figured it rises at right angles 

 from the caterpillar, springing from the nape of the neck. Like 

 all Cordyceps it has a long stipe surmounted by a black cylindrical 

 head tapering slightly at the apex and bases. The section of the 

 head shows the perithecia placed side by side immediately below 

 the surface. I condense the following description of a very 

 common British species of Cordyceps from De Bary's " Mor- 

 phology of Fungi" : — "Cordyceps militaris. — Ascospores (spores 

 contained in asci), formed in the orange-coloured, club-shaped 

 stromata, are ejected as rod-shaped bodies, divided by transverse 

 walls. When these rod-shaped cells fall on the moist body of the 

 caterpillar they usually separate from one another, become 

 rounded in shape, and then put out germ tubes. The germ tubes 

 penetrate at once into the chitinous skin of the insect. Here 

 they enlarge and make their way between the bundles of muscles 

 and lobes of fatty substance of the creature. By means of 

 terminal or lateral sprouting they give off spore cells, termed 

 gonidia. These gonidia are disseminated through the blood by 

 the movements of the insect, and fill it by degrees into a dense 

 mass. They grow at the expense of the blood, which diminishes 

 in quantity to such a degree that the insect becomes soft, and in 

 this state dies. A body is thus formed in two to three days' time 

 which retains the shape of the living insect, but consists of a close 

 weft of fungal hyphse, with some small remains of the body of the 

 insect." In the foregoing description we have a parasitic fungus 

 bearing spores in asci, growing at the expense of a living insect. 

 But now from the fungal hypha3 contained in the remains of the 

 insect a new form of fungus arises ; it passes out through the skin of 

 the caterpillar and appears on the surface as club-shaped fungus 

 bodies borne on orange-coloured stalks, with a felt of branchlets 

 covered with gonidia, which are really naked spores. This new 

 fungus is a form species known under the name oi Isariafarinosa. 

 Both of the famous French savants, De Bary and Tulasne, agree 

 that Isaria farinosa must be regarded as a gonidial state of 



