THREE INTERESTING ASCOMYCETES 171 



3. ELEUTHEROSPHiERA LONGISPORA GrOV6. (Fig. 3.) 



Eleutheromyces longisporw Phill. & Plow. Grev. xiii. 78 (1885) ; 

 Saec. Syll. Addit. p. 195 (1886). 



In July I found at Studley, on the the top of an oak stump, a 

 large chrome-yellow mass of the Plasmodium of a Myxomycete. 

 This was brought to Birmingham and placed under a bell-glass, 

 but owing to the disturbance of the conditions it never developed 

 properly, although a few irregular sporangia were formed. 



But, as it decayed, the surface became covered with a fine, 

 white, arachnoid mycelium, much interwoven, with many strands 

 composed of parallel liyphffi (hyphflB reaching 12 /x diam.). At the 

 crossings of these strands there were formed globular or discoidal 



masses (£-£ mm. diam.) of perithecia, the long necks protruding in 

 all directions like the spines of an Actinosphaerium, the bases 

 immersed in a slight layer of mucus, twenty to fifty in a cluster. 



The perithecia were hyaline and whitish, faintly tinged with 

 yellow when older, globular or ellipsoid below, prolonged into a 

 tapering neck ; the venter was formed of large pseudo-parenchyma 

 (cells averaging 10 //. diam.), the cells becoming elongated upwards, 

 and at the tip of the ostiolum these were reduced to six or eight 

 narrow linear cells surrounding the orifice. The point was as 

 sharp as a needle, but soon broke off about half-way down, leaving 

 a stumpy perithecium. Cells individually as clear as glass, colour- 

 less, with a few minute nuclei ; the wall of the perithecium was 

 only one cell thick everywhere except at the base. 



The perithecium, which resembled the archegonium of Mar- 

 chantia, was often empty, but in other cases was filled with delicate 

 asci, which soon became diffluent ; asci clavato-fusiform, four- 

 spored ; spores fusiform, acute at each end, hyaline, uniseptate, 

 each cell uniguttulate or full of greenish granules which were often 

 arranged in two groups, surrounded by a layer of mucus by which 

 the spores were held together after the diffluence of the asci. Peri- 

 thecia 450-500 X 60-90 p ; asci 120 x 25 p ; spores 60-70 x 

 8-10 /*; no paraphyses. There is only room in the perithecium for 



about eight or ten asci. 



This is apparently an extremely rare species; I cannot find 

 any other records of it. It is curious that it was discovered by 

 Plowright in 1882 on the very same kind of habitat as in the 

 present case. The perithecia of my specimens were not so broad, 

 nor were the spores ciliate at each end, as described by Plowright, 

 but otherwise the agreement is perfect. It may, of course, be that 

 the cilia are a later development, but I am inclined to think that 

 the mucus when dried might present the appearance of a cilium at 

 the ends, as in several cases it was seen as shown in fig. Se. But the 

 other end of such a spore was often darker in colour and not ciliate. 



The spores are distinctly uniseptate when mature, so that it 

 cannot, according to modern views, be congeneric with Eletithero- 

 myces subitlatus (Tode), though the similar texture of the perithecia 

 and diffluence of the asci are indications of a close affinity. It is 

 therefore necessary to found for it the genus Eleutherosphcera, which 

 is distinguished from Eleutheromyces mainly by its septate spores. 



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