14 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [january 



(figs. 33, 35), and the uppermost septa are not reached by the sporiferous 

 filaments themselves. 



In general appearance this plant is so like some of the Laboulbeniales 

 that at first I was inclined to believe that it might prove to be the male in- 

 dividual of some ascigerous form characterized by an entirely new type of 

 antheridial structure. Its development, however, is so widely different from 

 anything hitherto known among the Laboulbeniales that there seems to be no 

 good reason to suppose, in the present condition of our knowledge of such 

 parasites, that it is even remotely related to them, an opinion which is sup- 

 ported by the fact that a careful search has failed to bring to light individuals 

 of a different nature. Since, however, its relation to other types of fungi is 

 equally problematical, it will have to await further developments in the limbo 

 "genera incertae sedis," in company with its companion Laboulbeniopsij 

 on the same host described below, to which, despite a superficial similarity, 

 it seems also quite unrelated. 



Thaxteriola Spegazzini. — This name has been used by 

 Spegazzini (Ann. Soc. Nat. Arg. 85:314) in a paper entitled 

 "Observaciones Microbiologicas," under the caption "Anforomor- 

 fideas Argentinas," to designate a series of very minute and simple 

 forms common on various insects, especially Staphylinidae, two 

 species of which were figured in my former paper (loc. cit., figs. 

 30-31), and referred to in the text (p. 250), no name being used to 

 designate them, owing to a lack of any complete knowledge of their 

 history and to their general insignificance. These organisms 

 consist primarily of two cells, the lower attached by a well defined 

 black foot, corresponding entirely with that of most Laboulbeniales; 

 while the upper, having become prolonged to form a necklike 

 termination, and having previously separated, at its base, a smaller 

 cell from which it is more often obliquely distinguished, produces 

 minute, naked, sporelike bodies formed in a single series and dis- 

 charged through the perforate extremity. These plants closely 

 resemble male individuals of Amor p homy ces, among the Laboulbe- 

 niales; but their occurrence in large numbers, and under no other 

 form, precludes the possibility that they may be conditions, 

 or stages, of any member of this family. Whether, as in the sperm 

 cells of Amor phomy ces, the spores produced by Thaxteriola are 

 formed continuously, as seems most probable, or cease to be pro- 

 duced after the protoplasm of the sporogenic cell has been exhausted, 

 I have not been able to determine satisfactorily. Spegazzini, how- 



