TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 1011 
Mould allied to, if not identical with, Ascotricha, which has become endoparasitic. 
The fungus was isdlated, cultivated in hanging drops, gelatine tubes and flasks ; 
and conidia from a pure culture when applied to fresh Pellia plants reproduced 
the disease. ‘The germ tube from the conidia was traced into the superficial cells, 
whose walls were browned in the neighbourhood of the germinating spores ;or 
their germ tubes. 
4, On Corallorhiza innata R. Br. and its associated Fungi. By 
A. Vaucuan Jennines, /.L.S., F.G.S., Demonstrator of Botany and 
Geology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. 
The orchid genus Corallorhiza has long been of interest to botanists on account 
of the peculiar rhizome from which it derives its name, the absence of roots, and 
that loss of chlorophyll associated with a saprophytic habit which it shares with 
such forms as Epipogon and Monotropa. During recent years considerable modifi- 
cation of the views of botanists as to the nutrition of saprophytes, as well as of 
other plants, has taken place owing to their frequently observed connection with 
fungoid elements; and from this point of view any additional information as to 
the habit of so specialised a type as Corallorhiza may prove of value. 
The writer has had some growing plants of this species under observation 
during July and August in the pine-woods near Davos Platz, and the results may 
be roughly stated as follows :— 
1. The parenchymatous tissue of the rhizome contains numerous hyphz of a 
‘Mycorhiza.’ These may be colourless, yellow, or brown, are distinctly septate, 
.and show the character of the mycelium of the higher fungi, not of the ‘ moulds,’ 
&c. Though most abundant in the middle cortex, the hyphe are present in all 
layers external to this, and their distribution is often correlated with the presence 
of a large quantity of starch. 
2. The rhizome of the growing plant is invariably surrounded by a web of 
white, yellow, and brown hyphz, which spread out for a long distance into the 
surrounding soil. These hyphe present the same characters under the microscope 
as those of the mycorhiza in the tissue cells. 
3. Though in hurriedly gathered specimens the rhizome seems to separate readily 
from the soil and its mycelium, a careful examination shows that the growing 
shoots bear small papillae crowned with tufts of long hairs, which serve for the 
collection and transmission of the fungous hyphe. The latter may be traced in 
great numbers from the surrounding mycelium down the hairs and through the 
epidermal cells into the ground tissue. 
4, The presence of these specialised hairs seems to indicate that, whatever may 
be the case in other plants, the mycorhiza has here a distinct physiological value to 
the orchid, and is not a merely tolerated symbiote. 
5. Attempts to discover whether the mycelium forming the mycorhiza can be 
referred to any one species of fungus have not as yet proved conclusive, but the 
following observations may be noted :— 
(a) The general and microscopic characters of the hyphe point to the Basidio- 
mycetes as the group to which the fungus belongs. 
(4) Several young agaricoid sporophores have been found growing from the 
mycelium round the rhizome. These refused to develop further in cultivation, 
but comparison with the early stages of Clitocybe infundibuliformis Sch., found a 
few feet distant, indicates that this is the species to which they belong. 
(ce) In another locality Tricholoma ionides Bull. was found growing from the 
hole from which a plant of Corallorhiza had been removed three days before. 
(d) In a third case a subterranean hymenomycete, probably a species of 
Hymenogaster, was found between the lobes of the rhizome with its mycelium 
spreading over the branches, 
So far, then, as this district is concerned, it seems that the ‘mycorhiza’ of 
‘Corallorhiza is a hymenomycete, and commonly an agaric; and that the species of 
Tricholoma and Clitocybe mentioned above are those commonly observed. The 
