198 FUNGI. 
large black soft gelatinous protuberances on the bark, formed 
by spores escaping and depositing themselves upon and about 
the apex of the perithecium. This I suspect to be an abnormal 
state of a well-known Spheria (S. laneiformis), which grows 
upon birch, and upon birch only. 
We might multiply, almost indefinitely, instances amongst the 
Spheriacet, but have already given sufficient for illustration, and 
will therefore proceed briefly to notice some instances amongst 
the Discomycetes, which also bear their complete or perfect fruit 
in asci. 
The beautiful purple stipitate cups of Bulgaria sarcoides, 
which may be scen flourishing in the autumn on old rotten 
wood, are often accompanicd by club-shaped bodies of the same 
colour; or earlier in the season these clavate bodies may be 
found alone, and at one time bore the name of Tremella 
sarcoides, The upper part of these clubs disseminate a great 
abundance of straight and very slender spermatia. Larlier than 
this they are covered with globose conidia. The fully-matured 
Bulgaria develops on its hymenium clavate delicate asci, each 
enclosing eight elongated hyaline sporidia, so that we have three 
forms of fruit belonging to the same fungus, viz. conidia and 
spermatia in the Tremella stage, and sporidia contained in asci 
in the mature condition.* The same phenomena occur with 
Bulgaria purpurea, a larger species with different fruit, long 
confounded with Bulgaria sarcoides. 
On the dead stems of nettles it is very common to meet with 
small orange tubercles, not much larger than a pin’s head, 
which yield at this stage a profusion of slender linear bodies, 
produced on delicate branched threads, and at one time bore the 
name of Dacrymyces Urtice, but which are now acknowledged to 
be only a condition of a little tremelloid Peziza of the same size 
and colour, which might be mistaken for it, if not examined 
with the microscope, but in which there are distinct asci and 
sporidia. Both forms together are now regarded as the same 
fungus, under the name of Peziza fusarioides, B. 
* Tulasne, ‘‘ On the Reproductive Apparatus of Fungi,” in ‘‘ Comptes Rendus” 
{1852), p. 841; and Tulasne, ‘‘ Selecta Fungorum Carpologia,” vol. iii. 
