MONOGRAPH OF CHAETOMIUM AND ASCOTRICHA 159 
corrected. According to his description the perithecia were 
globose, membranaceous, clothed on all sides with opaque hairs, 
and at length became pierced by an opening at the summit. 
The spores were pellucid and mingled in a gelatinous mass. The 
fungus appeared like an inverted Муготесит of Tode. The 
spherical or steeple-shaped fruiting body consisted of a cuticular 
integument, trimmed with long, mostly stiff opaque hairs envelop- 
ing a more or less globular, gelatinous mass in which spores were 
mixed. Under the influence of moisture the semi-transparent 
enclosing walls opened by a central pore and drew back more or 
less. The wall closed as it became dry and reopened with re- 
turning moisture. This happened as long as the perithecium 
contained spores. 
It may be seen from the above description that Kunze saw 
clearly an important fact, namely that the perithecium possessed 
a pore through which the spores were discharged, but that on 
the other hand he failed to interpret aright its internal structure. 
It is not difficult for one acquainted with the appearance of the 
structure within the perithecial wall to understand how, with 
comparatively slight magnification, he mistook these structures 
for a mass of jelly and failed to discover the asci of which the 
mass is made up. Hence the fact that asci were present in 
these plants was entirely overlooked. 
Ch. globosum Kze. (50) was named and described as charac- 
teristic and typical of the genus. According to his own state- 
ment Kunze was familiar with several other species of Chaetomium, 
and it was his intention to publish a monograph at a later date, 
but with the exception of a description of an interesting species 
under the name Ch. elatum Kze. (51) this author published 
nothing further on Chaetomium. : 
In spite of the fact that not less than thirteen new species 
Were described by Ehrenberg (28), Fries (38), Wallroth (109), 
and Schweinitz (91) during the years immediately following 
Kunze's work, no contribution of value was made until 1837. 
Writers up to this time had not discovered the presence of asci 
nor had they considered the size of spores an aid to the identi- 
fication of species. In many diagnoses of new forms the fact 
that the genus had been characterized by Kunze as possessing 
_ ап ostiole seems to have been entirely overlooked. 
