424 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, 1912. 
species rather than linear, like those of E. radicalis, already 
discussed. 
Both Schweinitz and Fries always considered Sphaeria gyrosa 
and S. radicalis as distinct species, but of very similar appear- 
ance, and Fries, when he formed the genus Endothia, did not 
include the latter under it. Botanists in their day, however, did 
not make very careful microscopic examinations. De Notaris, 
in Sfer. Ital. 11, p. 91, in 1863, seems to have been the first 
to place S. radicalis under the genus Endothia, and Tulasne, in 
Sel. Fung. Carp. 2, p. 87 and p. 298, the same year, was 
apparently the first to consider the S. gyrosa and S. radicalis as 
one species, which he called Melogramma gyrosa. Fuckel also, 
in 1869, treated them as one species, and since that time European 
botanists have generally considered them as a single species, 
using sometimes E. gyrosa and sometimes £. radicalis as a 
specific name. In view of the information already given in 
Shear’s letter, we are inclined to believe that this interpretation 
is correct, and that S. gyrosa is merely the conidial stage, as 
first suggested by Winter in Rab. Krypt. Fl. 1?, p. 804. 
A considerable number of names have been applied in Europe 
to Endothia gyrosa, but it is rather difficult to determine whether 
all of these apply to the fungus under discussion. For instance, 
Streinz, in Nom. Fung., p. 545, in 1862, under S. gyrosa, gives 
S. fluens Sow. as a synonym, and under S. radicalis, p. 559, 
gives S. twberculariae Rud. as another. Shear has examined the 
Sowerby specimen, and he says: “There is little doubt that 
Sphaeria fluens Sow., described and figured by Sowerby in the 
supplement of his English Fungi, 1814, Plate 420, published 
as part of Plate 438, from a collection by Charles Lyall, in the 
New Forest of southern England, is the pycnidial condition of 
Endothia radicalis De Not.” If this is true, then it must be an 
extremely rare fungus in England, since in answer to a letter 
to the Kew herbarium we received the reply that “Endothia 
gyrosa is very rare in Britain, if it really occurs.” From 
Sowerby’s description, one cannot be sure if it relates to this 
or some other fungus. Mr. Wakefield of Kew writes concern- 
ing our inquiry as to the host: “It is not possible to say with. 
certainty what is the host of Sowerby’s Sphaeria fluens. The 
specimen is very small, and no note is attached to it.” We do 
not believe that this English specimen has as yet been definitely 
