330 INTRODUCTION TO CEYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



almost jet-black, with all sorts of intermediate shades. In 

 some they are extremely minute and often curved, in others 

 they are large and variously septate, while in Myriocephaluni 

 they are seated in tufts at the tips of long filaments, as if they 

 were so many miniature Penicillia. In Asterosporiuni 

 they are curiously joined at the base so as to form little stars 

 or caltrops. 



355. Various, however, as their characters are, it is quite 

 certain that a larger number of the supposed species is not 

 autonomous. Mr. Broome and myself found Sphceria inqui- 

 nans and Stilbospora irvacrospora produced from opposite 

 sides of the same cellular matrix, and the connection between 

 other Sphcerice and such genera as Myriocephalum is equally 

 clear. It does not, however, follow that there are no autono- 

 mous species. They are, with scarcely an exception, productions 

 of the northern hemisphere ; and some of them, as Myrioce- 

 phalum, descend as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. 

 At present not one of them has turned up in New Zealand, 

 and I do not recollect that I have a single antarctic species in 

 my herbarium. The Fungi, however, of New Zealand have not 

 been half explored, and as the same rule holds good amongst 

 Cryptogams as Phasnogams, that genera are more abundant 

 in proportion than species, many gaps may ultimately be 

 filled up which will extend the geographical limits of some 

 groups of Fungi, at present supposed to be confined to the 

 northern hemisphere. Bactridium approaches far nearer to 

 the Mucedinous type than the rest, but is placed here on ac- 

 count of its resemblance in point of structure, though not in 

 colour, to Cory7ieum. Nemaspora oscillates between this 

 and the following, as does Biscella, which makes a further 

 approach towards a perithecium. 



6. Sph^konemei, G'orda. 



Perithecium distinct, free or erumpent ; spores basal or 

 parietal, simple or septate, sometimes oozing out by the con- 

 traction of the perithecial walls. 



356. We now come to a very large and in general un- 

 satisfactory group of productions, the abomination of all my- 

 cologists, especially of those who are unfortunate enough 



