28 



SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



mass of the plant. In the first stage of its growth 

 it is of a yellow colour, which with age becomes 

 orange. The orange colour is permanent or per- 

 sistent, very different from the fugacious orange- 

 yellows of the Uredines, which cannot be preserved 

 in the herbarium. This Dacryomyces looks as 

 bright after having been kept in a dry state for 

 years as it did the day after it was collected. The 

 whole mass of this plant is composed of conidia 

 (fig. 8) disjoosed in rows. The sporophores, or 

 spore-bearing vessels (fig. 9), are clavate. They 

 are not often found in this fungus, but there were 

 several in the portion I prepared, only they burst 

 in the mounting process. The spores (fig. 10) they 

 ■contained may be found on the slide by careful 

 search. 



Rhytisma acerinwn Fr. Sycamore Fungus. 

 Cooke's Handbook, No. 2279. Habitat on syca- 

 more and maple leaves. — Very common. Anyone 

 who has ever looked at a sycamore tree in summer 

 or autumn must have noticed nearly every leaf to 

 have been more or less spotted with black, as if 

 the first few great drops of some thunder shower 

 had been jet-black pitch instead of rain (fig. 11). 

 These are the spermogonia spots of this fungus, 

 a,nd of themselves are well worth being examined 

 under the microscope. What I have prepared and 

 mounted is a bit of the ascophorous state which it 

 assumes during winter and spring, when the black- 

 spotted leaves are lying on the damp ground. The 

 black spots then swell, become wrinkled, and burst 

 by flexuose labiate fissures. The asci (fig. 12) are 

 lanceolate, with the upper part egg-shaped. The 

 sporidia (fig. 13) are very long, thead-like, and 

 flexuose. A full and illustrated account of 

 R. acerimtvi, by Mr. W. B. Grove, is to be found in 

 Science-Gossip, vol. xxii. O.S. p. 228. 



TricMa varia P. Variable Trichia. Cooke's 

 Handbook, No. 1188. Habitat on decayed wood. — 

 This is one of the Myxomycetes, or, as they are 

 called in Cooke's Handbook, Myxogastres. The 

 whole plant is at first pulpy or gelatinous, the 

 peridium (figs. 14 and 15) or enclosing skin being 

 at length filled with spiral flocci, or threads (fig. 17). 

 and dust-like spores (fig. 16). This is one of those 

 fungi which when young are mobile, and have a 

 changing form of an amoeboid character. So re- 

 markable is this feature that some would have this 

 and kindred plants reckoned among the animals. 

 I have given drawings of the peridium in various 

 stages of growth. Owing to its dry nature I found 

 it necessary to prepare this fungus for mounting 

 by placing in a mixture of equal parts of glycerine, 

 spirit, and water, and keeping it for some days 

 before mounting finally in glycerine jelly. 



Fusisporiicm roseolum Steph . Potato Fusisporium. 

 Cooke's Handbook, No. 1863. Habitat on decayed 

 potatoes. — This plant is very common on the 

 decayed potatoes found during winter and spring 

 among heaps of this esculent, especially when kept 

 in a dry home. I have also found it on decayed 

 apples kept in a loft near potatoes. It forms thin 

 floccose patches of a delicate rose-red colour 

 (fig. 18). The fertile flocci, or threads, are short, 

 the spores (fig. 19) are curved, elongated, slightly 

 obtuse, three to six septate, and often have slight 

 projections at each dissepiment. I have selected 

 this to show what an interesting, and at the same 

 time beautiful, plant for study or examination 

 with the microscope may be found on even a 

 worthless rotten potato. The more we examine 



even the commonest things, the more the student 

 and observer is sure to find. 



Volutella ciliata Fr. Fringed Volutella. Cooke's 

 Handbook, No. 1667. Habitat on potato. — This 

 is another beautiful fungus to be found on potatoes, 

 most frequently on such as are in an incipient 

 state of decay. It grows in little tufts or cushions 

 which are sub-stipitate. It is at first whitish, which 

 with growth and age becomes rose-coloured. The 

 whole circumference of the plant is fringed or 

 studded with long hyaline bristles which stand 

 erect. These bristles have sharp points, and are 

 evidently septate (fig. 20). The spores (fig. 22) 

 are different, and of a gelatinous character. There 

 is a sort of stroma which Berkeley conjectures to 

 be formed probably from abortive bristles. A 

 synonym for this is Psilonia rosea. 



Peziza fusarioides Berk. Nettle Peziza. Cooke's 

 Handbook, No. 2114. Habitat on dead nettle 

 stems. — A little attention will not fail to discover 

 this fungus in spring on the dry and bleached 

 nettle stems. The tiny cups are less than a line in 

 diameter, and are so shallow and depressed that 

 they look like red stains on the stem. The colour 

 is really an orange red. The cups are at first 

 almost globose, but they gradually expand, and in 

 maturity have a thick flexuous or even border. The 

 asci (fig. 23) are clavate, each holding eight 

 sporidia. The sporidia are oblong, or oblong- 

 spindle-shaped, curved, and marked across the 

 middle with the appearance of a septum or 

 division. The paraphyses (fig. 23) are thread-like 

 and slender, with club-shaped top. It appears 

 from Phillips on the British Discomycetes that 

 this Peziza is now called Calloria fusarioides. 



Di&ymiwni squamulosum . A. & S. Scaly Didy- 

 mium. Cooke's Handbook, No. 1122. Habitat 

 on dead leaves. — I have found this on dead laurel 

 and beech leaves (figs. 24 and 25). It grew in 

 colonies or flocks, which at first glance I thought 

 were the eggs of some snail. But a closer inspec- 

 tion showed they were the fairy puff-balls of a 

 beautiful micro-fungus of the genus Didymium. A 

 careful dissection will prove that there is an inner 

 as well as an outer envelope, or peridium, enclosing 

 a. mass of spores loosely attached in the early state 

 to a central column, which is the prolongation of 

 the stem or stipe. In this species the outer 

 peridium is globose, depressed, umbilicate beneath, 

 ash-coloured, covered with minute scales of the 

 same colour. The inner peridium is very delicate. 

 The stem is very short, even, and white, whilst the 

 spores (fig. 26) are dark brown. 



Ustilago urceolorum Tul. Sedge Smut. Cooke's 

 Handbook, No. 1521. Habitat surrounding the 

 seed of various Carices, as Carex praeeox, C. stel- 

 lata, C. recurva, and C. pseudo-eyperus (fig. 27). — 

 It is in some localities rather common in the 

 autumn months. The smuts to which this fungus 

 belongs have no peridium enclosing the spores, 

 and they are all parasitic on living plants. The 

 bunt of wheat (Tilletia caries) and the corn smut 

 ( Ustilago carbo) are, unfortunately, too well known. 

 This sedge smut is produced on the glumes and 

 utricles of the Carex. The spores grow in a com- 

 pact mass, which, when they are ripe, breaks up. 

 The spores are globose, rather large, and granu- 

 lated (fig. 28). Anyone searching a bed of fading 

 Carices in autumn is almost sure to meet with this 

 parasite. All the foregoing specimens were mounted 

 in glycerine jelly. 



