59 



'*** Stroma TiOTie or scanty, sporidia hyaline, subell'iptical. 6. 



6. Perithecia subulate-, sporidia appendiculate. Eleutheromyces. 

 Coniddal stroma tubercular, sporidia uniseptate. Nectria. 



" '• capitate " " Spkcerostilbe. 



Sporidia 2-or more-septate. Calonectria. 



" muriform. Pleonectria. 



Asci polysporous. XJhilonectria. 



Sporidia filiform, fimicolous. Barya. 



" " xylogenoTis. . . Ophionectria. 



7. Perithecia blue or violet. Oibberella. 



8. Perithecia heafced^ sporidia brown. Melanospovd, 



CLAVICEPS, Tul. 



Ann. Sci, Nat. II, 1853, Ser. XX, p. 4J. 



Stroma erect, consisting of a sterile stem and subglobose, fertile 

 liead, growing from a subcylindrical, black, hard sclerotium. Peri- 

 thecia sunk in the stroma, flask-shaped. Asci clavate-cylindrical. 

 8-spored. Sporidia filiform, colorless, continuous. 



"The development of this genus begins in early summer in the 

 flowers of wheat, rye and various grasses, the mycelium penetrating the 

 ovary of the affected flower and transforming it by degrees into a soft, 

 smutty -white substance filled with numerous cavities whose walls are 

 lined with sterigmata bearing numerous ovate, colorless stylospores. 

 This soft amorphous body is gradually changed into the cylindrical, 

 horn-shaped sclerotium (ergot) which falling from the head of grain 

 and lying on or in the ground through the winter, puts forth in the 

 following spring, the perfect ascigerous fungus. 



C. purpurea (Pr.) 



Sphaeria purpurea, Fr. S. M. II, p. 325 (partly) 

 Claviceps purpurea, Tul. 1. c, Winter Die Pilze, II, p. 146. 

 Exsicc. Rab. Herb, Myc. 431.— Thum. P. Austr. 555, 875, 975.— Schweii. Krypt. 630, 631 

 Krgr. Fung. Sax. 73, 365, 489, 490. 



Scterotium I5-2I cm. long, cylindrical-horn-shaped, mostly a 

 little curved, wrinkled, purplish-black outside, white within. Stro- 

 mata usually several (seldom only one) from the same sclerotium. 

 Heads spheroid, tuberculose from the prominent perithecia, borne on 

 short flexuous stems. Asci narrow, linear, 8 spored. Sporidia fili- 

 form, continuous, attenuated toward each end, hyaline, 50-76 /j. long. 

 Fusarium heterosporum, Nees. and Oidium abortifaciens, B. and 

 Br. are considered to be the conidia of this species. 



In heads of rye and various other species of the order Gramineae. 



