VIBRISSEA. 487 



Vibrissea truncorum. Fries, Syst. Myc, ii. p. 31 ; 

 Phil., Brit. Disc, p. 316, pi. x. fig. 60; Sacc, Syll., viii. 

 n. 167 (figs. 32-35, p. 188). 



Ascopkores gregarious or scattered, often in clusters of 

 2-4, stipitate, orbicular and rather fleshy, disc golden-yellow, 

 orange, tawny, or blood-red, convex, 3-5 mm. across, hypo- 

 thecium and excipulum hyaline, formed of intricately inter- 

 woven, septate hyphae about 3 /a thick, passing into pseudo- 

 parenchyma at the point where the widened apex of the stem 

 joins the excipulum, and running out on the free surface 

 into dark-coloured septate hyphae, which form more or less 

 of a fringe round the margin of the disc ; stem, 6—12 mm. 

 long, 1 • 5-3 mm. thick, round, composed of more or less 

 parallel, hyaline, septate hyphae, densely covered with dark- 

 coloured, obtuse, septate hyphae pointing at right angles to 

 the long axis of the stem ; asoi elongated, narrowly cylindri- 

 cal, 8-spored ; spores hyaline, very slender, nearly as long as 

 the ascus, 200-220 x 1 " 5 /i, multiseptate, arranged in a pa- 

 rallel fascicle in the ascus ; paraphyses very slender, septate, 

 sometimes branched, tips slightly thickened and coloured. 



Leotia truncorum, Alb. & Schw., Consp., p. 397, t. 3, fig. 2. 



Vibrissea Margarita, White, Scot. Nat., vol. ii. p. 218; 

 Phil., Brit. Disc, p. 318 ; Sacc, Syll., viii. n. 170. 



On decaying wood and branches in streams ; most abundant 

 in subalpine districts. 



The head is about 2 lines broad, at first plane, becoming 

 convex, often slightly repand, umbilicate beneath ; the stem, 

 at first stuifed, becomes hollow, is 2-6 lines high, bluish- 

 grey, with blackish squamules, or smooth, darker towards 

 the base ; the asci are very long, cylindrical, numerous ; the 

 spores very slenderly filiform, divided by numerous septa, 

 narrower towards each extremity, 8 in the ascus ; paraphyses 

 numerous, branched; septate, enlarged and brownish at the 

 summits. When removed from the water and exposed for a 

 short time to the air, the spores shoot out from the hyme- 

 nium with more or less violence, many of them remaining 

 attached by one extremity to the hymenium, waving to and 

 fro like flo.^s silk, glittering in the light. (Phillips.) 



The blackish squamules mentioned by Phillips as occurring 

 on the stem, are due to the clustering together of a number 

 of the radiating hairs clothing its surface. 



