1897 | BRIEFER ARTICLES 369 
at the widest part. The measurements for length include the stalk. 
In one apothecium 890 X 320m the stalk was 160m long. 
The number of apotbecia found upon a single leaf varies from one 
to six or seven. When more than one are present they may be soli- 
tary or aggregated into groups, as described above. They occur on 
both sporophylls and foliage leaves, and always on the upper side. 
When found on the sporophylls they are grouped about the sporangium 
of the host, but in none of the material examined were apothecia seen 
growing upon the sporangium itself (fg. 5). 
he asci are numerous, a hundred or more in each apothecium. By 
soaking some material in potassium hydrate for several days the apo- 
thecial wall becomes sufficiently cleared to reveal the arrangement of 
the asci within. They lie parallel in the body of the apothecium, 
closely crowded together and extending almost to the ostiole (fg. 6). 
When the asci are réleased through the side by breaking open the apo- 
thecium they escape in masses, clinging together, with numerous para- 
physes. These are about a third ora fourth the length of the asci, 
delicate, threadlike, hyaline. The asci vary from 220-320 long by 
5-8m wide. One ascus showed a curious branching near the end 
(Ag. 7). 
The spores are long and slender, extending the entire length of 
the ascus, but the whole group of spores is generally so twisted that it 
is extremely difficult to determine their number, as it is almost impos- 
Another method employed was to embed the apothecia in paraffin, 
and with the microtome cut a series of transverse sections, thus obtain- 
ing cross sections of the asci. Two of these sections revealed seven 
Spores in the one case and nine in the other (fg. 70). 
__ The spores are multiseptate and hyaline, so that when they are 
twisted the septations of the under ones can be seen through the upper 
_ Ones, giving them a guttate appearance. 
After careful study of descriptions and comparison with herbarium 
‘Material, the habit of growth, character of the apothecium, ascus, and 
Spores, clearly place the plant studied in the genus Acrospermum Tode, 
of which the following description is translated from’ Saccardo*, who 
: _ *Saccarpo, Syll. Fung. 2:807. 1883. 
Places these plants in the Hysteriacee among the Pyrenomycetes, with 
