170 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



hundreds. It seems likely that the name canescens was suggested 

 to Cooke by this hoary coating, as the few non-conidiiferous cups 

 were of a nearly uniform brown. 



2. Coryne xjrnalis Sacc. Mass. F. F. iv. 153. (Fig. 2.) 

 Ombrophila purpurea PhilL Disc. 324. 

 Bulgaria purpurea Cooke, Grev. ii. 163. 



There is considerable interest attached to the species of Coryne, 



because some of them present the unusual character of bearing in 



their asci two kinds of spores ; the relation of these spores to one 

 another is an open question. 



The same phenomenon occurs in the Discomycetous genus 

 Tympanis. Similarly, among the Pyrenomycetes, some species of 

 isectriacei are met with, having apparently the same external 

 appearance, but bearing sometimes eight spores, at another time 

 innumerable smaller ones, in an ascus. Some authorities, as 

 Tulasne, consider these two forms in each case as belonging to the 

 same species ; others, as Saccardo, state that they are recognisably 

 distinct, even in external appearance. 



Last December I received from Aberystwith, by the courtesy of 

 Dr. J. H. Salter, some specimens of Coryne umalis in which the two 

 kinds of spores were present in large numbers. If a fragment of 

 the hymenium was crushed under a cover-glass, the field was 

 crowded with spores of both kinds. On cutting sections, it was 

 noticed that most of the asci contained the usual elliptic-fusoid 

 spores, measuring 25-30 x 5 /* ; the contents of these were very 

 granular, and many of them were distinctly 5 or 6 septate (fig. 2/.) 

 Paraphyses fasciculate at base, linear, granular, always longer than 

 the asci. 



But here and there an ascus presented the peculiar appearance 

 shown in fig. 2c. There were four of the fusoid spores, alternating 

 with the same number of groups of minute globose spores (2^/x 

 diam.), about twenty in each group. Moreover, these bodies 

 resembled very closely (except that they were more regular in size) 

 the granular contents of some of the larger spores. 



When section after section was examined and showed the same 

 arrangement, it became evident that the groups of small spores 

 simply replaced a single larger one, the protoplasm which should 

 have formed the latter being broken up into about twenty smaller 

 portions, each of which surrounded itself with a cell-wall. Thus 

 the microspores, though in appearance and refractive power like 

 the granular masses seen within an unseptate megaspore, were more 

 distinct in outline as well as more regular in size. 



But it seemed impossible to conceive of any reason for this 

 peculiar formation, since the other four megaspores were exactly of 

 the same character as when the normal eight spores arose in the 

 ascus. Since, in addition, some of the cups produced, not asci, but 

 hyphse bearing huge numbers of minute allantoid conidia, 5x1/* 

 (fig. 2e), it will be seen that this species produces three very 

 different kinds of spore. 



