SPHAEEOSPOEA. 295 



Sphaerospora brunnea. Mass. 



Gregarious or crowded, sessile, subglobose and closed at 

 first, tlien becoming broadly expanded but Laving the 

 margin permanently more or less raised, often wavy, rather 

 fleshy, brittle, disc pale yellowish brown externally, and the 

 margin darker than the disc and pilose, the hairs, which are 

 most abundant and fasciculate at the margin, are cylindrical 

 or very slightly tapering, ends obtuse, usually 1-septate, 

 smooth, wall slightly thickened, sometimes slightly curved, 

 pale yellowish brown, 25-40 X 5-7 /x ; cortical cells large, 

 irregularly polygonal 10-18 fj, diameter; asoi cylindrical, 

 apex obtuse, narrowed below into a pedicel which is usually 

 crooked at the base, 8-spored ; spores globose, hyaline, 

 smooth, 1-seriate, 12-14 /x diameter; paraphyses septate, the 

 brownish clavate tips 5-6 /x broad. 



Peziza hrunnea, A. & S., Consp. Fung., n. 946, p. 317, 

 tab. ix. fig 8 ; Cooke, Mycogr. fig. 126a (copied from Alb. 

 & Schw.) ; not of Phil., Brit. Disc, p. 209. 



On charcoal bed. 



Described from a specimen from Schweinitz, now in Herb, 

 Berk., Kew. 



It is somewhat remarkable that the Schweinitzian specimen 

 in Berkeley's herbarium should have been overlooked by both 

 Cooke and Phillips. The species, as stated by Schweinitz, 

 resembles Laehnea hemispherica in habit and in the fasciculate 

 hairs, but differs in being smaller, of a uniform yellow-brown 

 colour, and more especially in the globose spores. 



Sphaerospora Phillipsii. Mass. 



Ascophores gregarious, subcaespitose, sessile, hemispherical 

 then depressed, subflexuose, brown, externally clothed with 

 minute, rigid, fasciculate, brown, septate hairs; disc the 

 eame colour; asci cylindrical, spores 8, globose, asperate, 

 15-18 /J. ; paraphyses slender, septate, apices clavate. 



Laehnea brunnea, Phil., Brit. Disc, p. 209. 



On the ground. 



Ascophores 1-2 lines broad. 



The above description embraces the characters of Albertini 

 and Schweinitz's species, with the addition of microscopical 

 characters of a plant referred to it by Mr. C. E. Broome, 

 which agrees admirably in external characters. (Phil.) 



