1905] THAXTER—NEW SPECIES OF WYNNEA 243 
and wearing, which is rather abruptly succeeded by a peripheral 
region lying beneath it, composed of densely woven brownish fila- 
ments. As these filaments pass toward the interior, they become 
more loosely woven, the walls are much thickened, and the living 
protoplasmic contents are evident; the brownish tinge is lost as they 
pass into the white or colorless more or less gelatinous areas by which 
the adjacent chambers are separated. The chambers themselves 
show the greatest irregularity in contour, and are clearly marked off 
by a layer of dark cells which line them and contrast rather abruptly 
with the intermediate colorless areas above mentioned. ‘These dark 
hymenium-like layers closely resemble the general external layer, and 
are made up of dark-walled, rounded, empty cells of somewhat 
smaller size, packed irregularly four or five deep; the somewhat 
ragged appearance of the superficial ones suggesting the lysigenous 
origin of the cavities which they line. Two such layers lying one on 
each side of an intermediate colorless region thus form the wall 
separating the cavities of two adjacent chambers (fig. 6). The early 
condition of this tuber-like body could not be determined, since all 
the specimens examined were well matured, and showed no signs of 
developing chambers. The body, however, appears to be in the 
nature of a sclerotium, which from its spongy structure may possibly 
serve the double purpose of supplying moisture as well as nutriment 
to the developing apothecia. 
An examination of the specimens of Wynnea gigantea in the Curtis 
Herbarium shows that this species is characterized by a general habit 
closely resembling that of the Carolina form; and the main stem, 
Where present in these specimens, is evidently broken from some 
attachment which may safely be assumed to have been a sclerotioid 
body similar to that above described. The presence of such a body 
might offer an additional reason for retaining BERKELEY’S genus, but 
its characters seem otherwise quite sufficient to remove it from Mi- 
dotis or other known discomycetous genera. In regard to Midotis 
it may further be said that no one appears to have any definite knowl- 
edge of this genus at the present time, and it is altogether doubtful 
what the nature of this generic type really is. The name is first 
mentioned by Fries (Syst. Orb. Veg. 363), without further allusion 
'0 a specific form than the remark “ Species unica pleuropus;”’ while 
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