220 PUCCINIA 
specimens is examined. The spores are, however, variable in form and 
colour, and the sori differ in appearance and arrangement ; no doubt the 
future will find this Puccinia divided into several biological races, if not 
into distinct species. Meanwhile, on morphological grounds alone, our 
British forms may be arranged under three heads : 
1. forma Lychnidearum (Link), on Lychnis; sori medium-brown in 
colour, often greyish, remarkably circinate, on conspicuous yellow 
and purple spots. 
2. forma Dianthe (DC.), on Dianthus; sori larger, darker, and more 
pulvinate, usually somewhat circinate; =P. Dianthi DC. 
3. forma Arenariae (Schum.), on Arenaria and Stellaria ; sori paler, 
not so circinate, spores paler ; =P. Moehringiae Fckl. 
The form on Sagina procumbens is so different that it is here reckoned 
as a separate species, P. Saginae K. et 8. (q.v.). It will be noticed that 
Plowright separated P. Lychnidearum as a distinct species from P. 
Arenariae, chiefly on the ground that he considered the former to possess 
uredospores. It has been observed by all, however, that the common 
form on Lychnis diurna has no uredospores in its very abundant sori ; it 
is therefore satisfactory to find that in Plowright’s herbarium there are 
several leaves of Lychnis diurna, gathered by W. Phillips at Aberystwyth 
apparently on one occasion only (July 1873), on which are uredospores 
mixed with very few teleutospores. These he named P. Lychnidearum, 
but examination shows that they have no connection with the common 
fungus met with everywhere on the same host but belong to P. Behenis 
Otth. See under that species. 
The Puccinia recorded by Plowright (/.c. p. 210) on Spergula arvensis 
may be a distinct species. See Cooke, Micr. Fung. p. 210. I have seen 
no specimens. 
When mature, the cells of the teleutospores of P. Lychnidearum 
separate with great ease ; they germinate readily while still in the sori, 
and the numerous basidiospores produced give them a greyish look, as 
happens also in other Lepto-species. I have specimens on Arenaria 
trinervis gathered in full germination at the end of May. During the 
process the spores become denticulate at the summit; in the case 
mentioned 75 °/, of the spores were in this state. Such spores have some- 
times been wrongly described as having digitate processes like those of 
P. coronata, — It was stated by De Bary that he had seen the germ-tubes 
of the basidiospores of P. Dianthi enter the host-plant through the 
stomata: no similar case has been detected by any other observer (see 
p. 38). 
DISTRIBUTION : Europe, Siberia, East Indies, North and 
South America. 
